When the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Broadcasting Reform) Act 2017 (Broadcasting Reform Act) commenced in October 2017, it “reformed the existing regulatory framework for the provision of ‘material of local significance’ (that is, local content) by commercial television broadcasting licensees in regional areas” (ACMA, 2020: 33):
The Broadcasting Reform Act introduced:
- additional local content obligations for commercial television broadcasting licences already covered by local content rules in the more populous regional licence areas in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania (collectively referred to as “aggregated” licence areas)
- new local content obligations for commercial television broadcasting licences in the remaining “non-aggregated” regional licence areas in South Australia, Western Australia, and western parts of New South Wales and Queensland.
(ACMA, 2020: 33)
These requirements were under strain prior to Covid-19, and now their long-term sustainability is in doubt.
Similar obligations apply to regional commercial radio licensees who are also required to broadcast prescribed amounts of material of local significance (local content) each year. In their annual Communications Report, the ACMA report that for the period 1 July 2018 to 30 June 2019, it did not receive any complaints about compliance with local content obligations (ACMA, 2020).
