Convergence Review heralds a dramatic shift in Australian media

Light on detail and raising many more questions than it answers, yesterday’s Convergence Review interim report is still bold and far-reaching, driven by a fundamentally optimistic view of the future for Australian culture, content and communication. For the first time, new platforms and services---including those operating outside Australia---will be meeting the same regulatory requirements for Australian content as free-to-air and subscription television. The broadcast services bands will be opened up, and a new market-based pricing system for spectrum will be instituted. Australian games companies, app developers and interactive content producers will have access to a tax offset previously only available to feature film and television drama producers. The cross-media ownership rules, a focus of passionate debate in years gone by, will be scrapped, along with the limit on the reach of commercial free to air networks. A new public interest test will be introduced for media mergers and takeovers, to be administered by a new convergent regulator. This last proposal for a new regulator, which was the draft report’s main headline, is also one of the most curious. While the other proposed changes will require substantial overhaul (and, the report claims, trimming down) of existing legislation, it is not immediately clear why the roles and responsibilities proposed for the new authority could not be performed by the Australian Communications Media Authority (ACMA).