Australians are either sticking with free-to-air TV or switching to subscription services in droves, depending on which organisation’s figures are being used.
Over the weekend, two reports exploring the state of Australia’s TV viewing habits were released, each telling completely different stories.
I’m really beginning to see how much heart Australian TV has lost.
I’ve spent a solid hour looking back over old YouTube uploads of 2015 era and there was so much more heart to it. The old ABC 4 Kids look felt more tailored for the young audience and felt a whole lot more charming. And the idents are great, across the whole of the ABC.
Not even ABC Kids has that many idents nowadays. Sad decline really. None of the commercials do, or have very many/creative ones.
Then again, I may be speaking through the lens of nostalgia.
All commercial television licensees have met Australian content quotas for their primary and non-primary channels in 2024, according to the latest ACMA report.
The 2024 Commercial Television Compliance with Australian Content Requirements report includes results for 13 metropolitan licensees and 62 regional licensees.
Under broadcasting rules, each year commercial television licensees must broadcast at least:
- 55 per cent Australian content in their programming between 6am and midnight on their primary channel, and
- 1,460 hours of Australian content between 6am and midnight on non-primary channels.
The Seven Network reported an average of 77 per cent Australian programs across its primary metropolitan channels, the Nine Network 81 per cent and Network Ten 64 per cent.
Regional licensees, including those from the WIN Network, SCA TV and Imparja, reported a compliance range of 64 per cent to 82 per cent on their primary channels.
Commercial television licensees are also required to reach 250 points by broadcasting first-release Australian content across certain genres each calendar year.
Points are allocated per broadcast hour based on a program’s genre and, for drama programs, the program’s production budget. This means that more points can be claimed per hour for commissioned Australian drama programs with high production budgets.
All metropolitan licensees met the required points quota, with the Seven Network reporting 267 points of first release Australian content, 275 points for the Nine Network and 446 points for Network Ten. These results include ‘carry over’ points from 2023.
All regional licensees met the required points quota, including one which met the requirement on a pro rata basis before returning its licence to the ACMA in June 2024.
The full 2024 Commercial Television Compliance with Australian Content Requirements report has been published on Broadcaster compliance with TV content standards | ACMA.
Information about the rules and the ACMA’s assessment approach is available at Australian content in TV programs | ACMA.
We also collect voluntary information from commercial TV networks about program expenditure – see Commercial TV program expenditure | ACMA.
The ACMA has today published guidance to assist TV manufacturers in designing home screens that will comply with Australia’s new TV prominence framework.
The TV prominence framework has been established to assist audiences to more easily locate and access Australian free-to-air broadcast television services and broadcasting video on demand apps. The framework will apply to all smart TVs and other similar streaming devices manufactured and supplied from 10 January 2026.
Manufacturers must design user interfaces that satisfy minimum prominence requirements, including in relation to the size, shape and location of apps.
The ACMA’s guidance includes illustrative examples of interfaces that would likely not comply, as well as outlining some of the considerations that we may take into account when assessing compliance.
TV prominence is a 2025–26 compliance and enforcement priority for the ACMA. We will continue to engage closely with industry over the coming months in preparation for the commencement of the framework.
Read more about our work on TV prominence on the ACMA website.
(paywall article from Good Weekend magazine this week)
Hi all
I have been looking through the history of regional television from when new tv stations in regional areas were established, then a golden period of local tv production then later to aggregation and the death of local production, including in many cases, local news.
Starting with local advertising I can’t imagine that local businesses like car yards or the larger shops would have moved their advertising to the internet as the internet would not be a good medium for local businesses and it would be hard to draw the attention of local viewers/internet users.
So I imagine the local advertising is still good but with demise of the local production and news the costs for regional stations are simply the costs of the capital city relays and whatever the three big networks get paid for programming.
Theoretically the tv stations, having divested themselves of their studios and most of their staff should be pretty profitable but then I hear than 10 Mildura is no more because it couldn’t turn a profit. Huh?
So can someone please explain the state of play and why regional tv stations and local programming have died despite aggregation and modern technology reducing costs?
At some point the case needs to be made for the production of local variety, children’s programming and news in regional areas with its associated benefits of local relevance and local employment. Could there be a case for the issuance of new regional only tv licenses to compete against the aggregated feeds from the capital cities and would there be sufficient potential revenue to make it profitable?
The Government stuffed it up with Aggregation & should’ve gone down the supplementary licence model for local TV stations just like Commercial Radio at the time then you would’ve had the local stations still in control of the content they made & then what they re-broadcast from the big 3. The other thing I that should’ve been in the conditions of the licence is the production & Play-out MUST come from the Licence Area. Even if they Stuck with the Aggregated Markets I recon there should’ve been a Licence stipulation stating the Station Must Play Out from The Original Station (EG NEN Tamworth, NRN Lismore & NBN Newcastle)
That would have been an equally poor outcome too. As there would have been no competition and being monopolies, not pay for much in fresh programming as what some of the tight arse regionals did in the past running lots of ancient content to fill the schedules not seen in metro areas for many years and in some cases decades. Aggregation should still have occurred, but only 2 incumbents, not 3, with a JV to carry the 3rd metro signal into the licensed areas. That may have enabled some elements of local production to continue. The aim of the Govt was always to duplicate metro choice in regional areas. The internet as now would have killed that off anyway. Regional TV is mostly dead sadly, gone like stream trains.
as we saw on places like South Australia, where supplementary channels took place instead of aggregation, there was still the same reduction in local content/production. To their credit, I suppose, Southern Cross and WIN maintained local news to some extent without being obliged to (IIRC). But even then the cost pressures soon took precedence and both axed local news production eventually.
Agree, aggregation, MCS or JVs would have all led to similar outcomes in terms of content, local content, production and playout. Local content might have survived for a bit longer under the MCS model, but competition from pay TV, streaming etc would have led to its demise with a corresponding downturn in ad revenue.
Aggregation should still have occurred, but only 2 incumbents, not 3, with a JV to carry the 3rd metro signal into the licensed areas.
I think Mildura proves that that approach would not have worked.
For very small markets like that yes. But Mildura may have been a combination of STV and BTV, or STV and GMV or STV and BCV, we will never know. Under a 2 incumbent set up, competitive pressures may apply that would never exist under solus market monopolies. Maybe if add sales for a JV were separate instead of the incumbents looking after selling their spots first for themselves before selling JV spots might have worked, who knows? There was no incentive in Mildura for the incumbents to sell JV spots, if anything, the reverse.
I wonder though whether that license that got handed back could be offered to a third party, a new entrant to the tv world, perhaps an independant tv station setup up like Canterbury TV was. It could take some ch 10 content but perhaps also produce some local news and other content. With a local focus the local advertisers might get behind the station.
The days are long gone. Any money made would not be worth the expense required to produce content that people these days want to watch.
NRN playout was from Coffs Harbour. If you mean RTN Lismore, that initially was separate in the 1960s, but playout transferred to Coffs Harbour in the 1970s at some stage.
Interesting tidbit from this (guess it fits here the best):
More recently, there have been discussions to create a consolidated, single sales unit for Ten, Nine and Seven, though it would be contingent on all three signing up, for regulatory reasons, multiple network executives tell On Background. There have also been mentions of news and production both being consolidated too.
The idea would be to bring advertisers in the door for the AFL (Seven), and on-sell them space during MasterChef (Ten) or The Block (Nine) for example. But Seven is said to be less keen on the idea, and its merger talks, which finalised this week, have added to the idea stalling.
It would mean the networks aren’t competing as strongly against one another and instead compete together against other streaming platforms. Could almost imagine an Australian Hulu even.
An Australia Hulu jointly owned by all three networks is long overdue.
