Will Australia’s regions again lose their local coverage if the ABC no longer accesses media bargaining code revenue from Meta? ABC Alumni Director, Quentin Dempster, outlines why he fears this is unavoidable and the impacts that will result.
As we move closer to the end of the three-year media bargaining agreements negotiated between ABC Managing Director, David Anderson, and Google and Meta (then Facebook) in 2021, observers like former long-time ABC journalist, Quentin Dempster, are becoming more concerned about the impact of the lost revenue which will result.
With the Meta/Google money, the ABC greatly expanded its reporting staff and state-based services, opening new reporting locations across Australia, as well as boosting existing bureaux in most states and territories.
“For the ABC, the issue is not just the revenue and its use for local and regional coverage. The tragedy is that if it loses the money there will be no coverage in areas that commercial media have already deserted. The current federal government is likely to be asked by the ABC to fill the coming hole in regional coverage but the problem seems to go much further,” Dempster writes.
Sophie Arnold
Enews Editor