Govt monitoring Australian moves to overhaul digital advertising

Friday, 24 April 2020

Broadcasting Minister Kris Faafoi says there have been meetings held between New Zealand officials and their Australian counterparts about that country's moves to make digital giants pay for local news.

Global giants such as Google and Facebook will be forced to pay for content in a radical overhaul of Australia's A$10 billion ($10.6b) internet advertising business, in a bid to shield local publishers from the economic wreckage of the coronavirus crisis.

Australian treasurer Josh Frydenberg will impose a mandatory code on the digital giants after losing faith in their work on a negotiated settlement with Australian media companies to reimburse them for news and other content.

Speaking to RNZ, Faafoi said some discussions had already happened although he had not yet been involved in them.

* Coronavirus: $50m government package to help media through crisis

* Government mulls Australian plan to make big tech like Google and Facebook pay for journalism**

'We're taking a serious look at what Australia is doing.'

He was due to have a meeting with Facebook representatives on Friday and, as part of that, would flag with them the discussions the Government was having about the long-term viability of the local media market.

Global giants such as Google and Facebook will be forced to pay for content in a radical overhaul of Australia's A$10 billion ($10.6b) internet advertising business, in a bid to shield local publishers from the economic wreckage of the coronavirus crisis.

The Government released the first of its support packages for media on Thursday, which the industry said was broadcast-heavy.

The $50m package included $20.5m to cut transmission fees for six months, $16.5m to reduce media organisations' NZ on Air content contribution fees, $1.3m to purchase central government news media subscriptions and $11.1m for specific targeted assistance to companies as needed.

Stuff chief executive Sinead Boucher told RNZ it would be important to understand how much of the $11m was available to her business. 'We will all be in there hoping to get our fair share. We're hoping that's enough to get us through this short-term crisis.'

She said it felt as though the Government had listened to accounts of the situation that local media companies were in, as a result of Covid-19-related revenue disruption and a wider problem of advertising revenue moving to offshore digital platforms.

She said wider action would be needed to ensure media companies had a long-term future.

'The model for producing journalism has been broken in the last few years. Whether or not the industry can come up with a formula for sustaining that is doubtful without Government intervention to try to redress the playing field.'

The Australian moves were heartening, she said. 'Putting in regulation is one thing, enforcing it is another. We'll be looking to see how the Australians intend to do that.'

Lobby group Better Public media said the Government's response so far had been disappointing.

It said it could already have a long-term solution for public media that supported private media, such as fewer advertisements on TVNZ as a way to help Mediaworks.

'We're left wondering what the rationale is behind pausing the work on a business case?' said BPM director, Myles Thomas. 'Surely that ongoing research and modelling can be done remotely and online.'

He said there was less obvious support for online news organisations - even though Faafoi has acknowledged the shift to a digital model.

'Stuff, NZME's news operation, ODT, Newsroom and Spinoff are all examples of news organisations reeling under Covid-19 recession and loss of advertising. Magazines are even more at risk, as we've seen with the closure of Bauer. Hopefully the $11m targeted assistance goes some way to supporting all these and the many other struggling news organisations. Likewise increases in the Local Democracy Reporting scheme would be very welcome.'