9th Nov 2016, 12:45 PM – Senate Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Television and Radio Licence Fees) Bill 2016 - Second Reading - Agree with bill's main idea

The majority voted to agree with the bill's main idea, which means the Senate can now discuss the bill in more detail. In parliamentary jargon, they voted to read the bill a second time.

Bill's main idea

The bill was introduced to reduce licence fees that commercial television broadcasting licensees and commercial radio broadcasting licensees have to pay by 25 per cent.

According to the bills digest:

The free-to-air broadcasters would like to see licence fees abolished altogether. They argue this would better enable them to fulfil their local content obligations and assist them to remain financially viable in a new media environment where subscription and online media operators do not pay licence fees.

Subscription broadcasters argue that reducing licensing fees for free-to-air commercial broadcasters amounts to preferential treatment as the free-to-air operators are being given discounts to use the public resource of spectrum, while also enjoying market protection as the result of other government regulation.

Some stakeholders argue that licence fee reductions should be accompanied by reciprocal requirements to increase local content production, but this is not a feature of this Bill.