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Mass media in Australia spans traditional and digital formats, and caters mostly to its predominantly
English-speaking
Speakers of English are also known as Anglophones, and the countries where English is natively spoken by the majority of the population are termed the '' Anglosphere''. Over two billion people speak English , making English the largest langua ...
population. It is delivered in a variety of formats including
radio
Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...
,
television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...
,
paper
Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distributed ...
, internet and
IPTV
Internet Protocol television (IPTV) is the delivery of television content over Internet Protocol (IP) networks. This is in contrast to delivery through traditional terrestrial, satellite, and cable television formats. Unlike downloaded media, ...
. Varieties include local, regional, state, federal and international sources of media, reporting on Australian news, opinion, policy, issues and culture.
Australia has been on a decline on the
Press Freedom Index
The Press Freedom Index is an annual ranking of countries compiled and published by Reporters Without Borders since 2002 based upon the organisation's own assessment of the countries' press freedom records in the previous year. It intends to ...
, in reflection of rising media censorship and intimidation of journalists in the country, including media companies maintaining close ties to political leaders, fueling doubts about editorial independence.
Two giant firms dominate mass media in Australia –
Nine Entertainment
Nine Entertainment (registered as Nine Entertainment Co. Pty Ltd) is an Australian publicly listed media company with holdings in radio and television broadcasting, newspaper publications and digital media. It uses Nine as its corporate brandi ...
and
News Corp Australia
News Corp Australia is an Australian media conglomerate and wholly owned subsidiary of the American News Corp. One of Australia's largest media conglomerates, News Corp Australia employs more than 8,000 staff nationwide and approximately 3,00 ...
, a subsidiary of American-based
News Corp
News Corporation, stylized as News Corp, is an American mass media and publishing company headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The second incarnation of the News Corporation (1980–2013), original News Corporation, it was formed ...
. The country was ranked 19th out of 180 countries in 2018, before subsequently dropping to 26th out of 180 countries for 2020 and 39th in 2022.
Television
Free-to-air TV
:
New South Wales
)
, nickname =
, image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates:
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Australia
, established_title = Before federation
, es ...
and
Victoria
Victoria most commonly refers to:
* Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia
* Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada
* Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory
* Victoria, Seychelle ...
were introduced to television in 1956, with the other states and territories following suit up to 1971 (the
Northern Territory
The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory ...
). Colour television was introduced in 1975.
In addition to the public broadcasters which are available to almost all of Australia's population, there are three major commercial television networks: the
Nine Network
The Nine Network (stylised 9Network, commonly known as Channel Nine or simply Nine) is an Australian commercial free-to-air television network. It is owned by parent company Nine Entertainment and is one of five main free-to-air television netw ...
, the
Seven Network
The Seven Network (commonly known as Channel Seven or simply Seven) is a major Australian commercial free-to-air Television broadcasting in Australia, television network. It is owned by Seven West Media, Seven West Media Limited, and is one of ...
and
Network Ten
Network 10 (commonly known as Ten Network, Channel 10 or simply 10) is an Australian commercial television network owned by Ten Network Holdings, a division of the Paramount Networks UK & Australia subsidiary of Paramount Global. One of five ...
. Most of Australia's heavily populated cities are serviced by all three networks. Some rural or regional areas may receive a more limited selection, often with some of the channels available showing programming from more than one of the major networks. An example of such a "shared" regional network is
Imparja
Imparja Television (IMP) is an independent Australian television station servicing over , across six states and territories of Australia, states and territories: Northern Territory, South Australia, Tasmania, Queensland, New South Wales and V ...
.
Digital
Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits.
Technology and computing Hardware
*Digital electronics, electronic circuits which operate using digital signals
**Digital camera, which captures and stores digital i ...
free-to-air broadcasts commenced on 1 January 2001. Analogue broadcasts were originally intended to be phased out by 2008, however analogue phaseout was not achieved until 2013.
After heated debate in the early 2000s over a Bill that would have removed the foreign ownership restrictions of broadcasting TV licences, the Australian government chose to retain the foreign-ownership restrictions in its 1992 Broadcasting Act. The
Howard Government was set to remove this law sometime in 2007, having gained parliamentary approval to change the legislation in 2006.
In 2007, with
Helen Coonan
Helen Lloyd Coonan (born 29 October 1947) is a former Australian politician who was a Senator for New South Wales from 1996 to 2011, representing the Liberal Party. She was a minister in the Howard Government, serving as Minister for Revenue ...
as communications minister, there were two significant changes. Foreign ownership limits were scrapped, government changed the cross-media ownership rules to allow ownership of two out of three media types.
Pay TV & Streaming Services
Approximately 25% of Australian households had access to
pay television
Pay television, also known as subscription television, premium television or, when referring to an individual service, a premium channel, refers to Subscription business model, subscription-based television services, usually provided by multichan ...
services by the end of 2005. The main provider is
Foxtel
Foxtel is an Australian pay television company—operating in cable television, direct broadcast satellite television, and IPTV streaming services. It was formed in April 2018, superseding an earlier company from 1995. The service was establi ...
in both metropolitan, regional and rural areas offering nearly all Australian channels via cable & satellite TV in capital cities, and mostly the same channels are offered by Foxtel via satellite TV (predominantly) in regional areas with the recent merger with Austar in 2012.
In mid-2016 the number of Australians with access to some form of Pay TV outstripped those with without. At the end of 2019 14.5 million Australians had access to some form of Pay TV or Subscription TV, with the combined audience of these platforms equalling almost 70% of the population. Netflix remains the market leader, although Foxtel and Stan have gained continual growth since entering the market.
There are several smaller competitors offer a subset of channels – with Fetch TV entering the market in 2010 with a subscription service over a few ADSL2+ networks, and TransACT offering TV via its own VDSL, VDSL2 and FTTP/FTTH networks in Canberra and its Neighbourhood Cable network in parts of Victoria. Other providers of Internet television in Australia offer free content or PPV, but don't offer a subscription product. UBI World TV offers a number of ethnic satellite TV and Radio channels nationwide, and other small companies offer some channels via satellite, especially foreign services or free-to-air channels, and some channels are available over the Internet.
Netflix
Netflix was released in Australia and New Zealand 24 March 2015. As of February 2019, 11.2 million Australians had a Netflix subscription in their household, up 25% on a year before that.
Netflix has been criticised for not "telling" Australian stories by former ABC managing director
Mark Scott. Research has found that Australian film and television made up less than 2% of Netflix's Australian catalogue in 2018. In 2020, the Australian Competition and Consumer Authority floated a proposal to subject Netflix to local content requirements. However, this proposal was ultimately rejected by the government.
Stan
Newspapers and news websites
Radio
Australia's first regular radio broadcasts began on 13 November 1923 with station
2SB (later to become 2BL) in Sydney. The
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
began broadcasting in 1932
talk radio, Talkback radio was first broadcast with
2UE in Sydney, just after midnight on 17 April 1967. ABC began experimenting with
FM stations in the 1960s, but it wasn't until July 1980 that the first FM station commenced full operations.
Melbourne-based 3EON (now known as
3MMM) was the first to air.
In 2009, there were 274 operational commercial stations (funded by advertising) and 341 community (publicly funded) radio stations.
National news radio broadcasters include the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is the national broadcaster of Australia. It is principally funded by direct grants from the Australian Government and is administered by a government-appointed board. The ABC is a publicly-own ...
which operates 4 national radio news networks (including
ABC News Radio and
ABC Radio National
Radio National, known on-air as RN, is an Australia-wide public service broadcasting radio network run by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). From 1947 until 1985, the network was known as ABC Radio 2.
History
1937: Predecessors an ...
), 53 local news stations through
ABC Local Radio
ABC Local Radio is a network of publicly owned radio stations in Australia, operated by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
ABC Local Radio stations broadcast across the continent using terrestrial transmitters and satellites. Its programm ...
and several digital radio stations; and the
Special Broadcasting Service
The Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) is an Australian hybrid-funded public service broadcaster. About 80 percent of funding for the company is derived from the Australian Government. SBS operates six TV channels ( SBS, SBS Viceland, SBS World ...
which also delivers multilingual Australian-produced news content.
Regulation
Regulation of the media is principally assured by the
Australian Government
The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Like other Westminster-style systems of government, the Australian Government i ...
through its power to make laws governing telecommunications. The Australian states and territories also have important roles in this area, notably in the area of defamation law, although their laws may not conflict with a valid federal law.
The
Australian Communications and Media Authority
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) is an Australian government statutory authority within the Communications portfolio. ACMA was formed on 1 July 2005 with the merger of the Australian Broadcasting Authority and the Austr ...
(ACMA) is the broadcasting regulator for radio and television in Australia, and also the co-regulatory Online Content Scheme. Consumers who have complaints about programs on television and radio or certain types of content on the Internet can apply to the ACMA. The
Commercial Television Code of Practice is a set of regulatory guidelines, registered with the ACMA, with which commercial television broadcasters should comply.
The
Australian Press Council
The Australian Press Council (APC) was established in 1976 and is responsible for promoting high standards of media practice, community access to information of public interest, and freedom of expression through the media. The council is also the ...
is the self-regulatory body of the print media. The Council deals with complaints from the public about editorial material in newspapers and magazines published in Australia, and aims to maintain the
freedom of the press
Freedom of the press or freedom of the media is the fundamental principle that communication and expression through various media, including printed and electronic News media, media, especially publication, published materials, should be conside ...
.
Media ownership
Controls over media ownership in Australia are laid down in the ''
Broadcasting Services Act 1992
The ''Broadcasting Services Act 1992'' (Cth) is an Act of the Parliament of Australia, which broadly covers issues relating to content regulation and media ownership in Australia. The law stipulates what is political advertising and the speci ...
'', administered by the ACMA. Even with laws in place Australia has a high
concentration of media ownership
Concentration of media ownership (also known as media consolidation or media convergence) is a process whereby progressively fewer individuals or organizations control increasing shares of the mass media. Contemporary research demonstrates in ...
compared to other western countries. Ownership of national and the newspapers of each capital city are dominated by two corporations,
Rupert Murdoch
Keith Rupert Murdoch ( ; born 11 March 1931) is an Australian-born American business magnate. Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of local, national, and international publishing outlets around the world, including ...
's
News Corp
News Corporation, stylized as News Corp, is an American mass media and publishing company headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The second incarnation of the News Corporation (1980–2013), original News Corporation, it was formed ...
, (which was founded in
Adelaide
Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...
but is now based from the United States) and
Nine Entertainment
Nine Entertainment (registered as Nine Entertainment Co. Pty Ltd) is an Australian publicly listed media company with holdings in radio and television broadcasting, newspaper publications and digital media. It uses Nine as its corporate brandi ...
– Murdoch-owned titles account for nearly two-thirds (64.2 per cent) of metropolitan circulation
[Calculated from circulation figures of metropolitan newspapers quoted in Wikipedia.] and Nine-owned papers account for a further quarter (26.4 per cent).
The
Australian Associated Press
Australian Associated Press (AAP) is an Australian news agency. It was established by Keith Murdoch in 1935.
AAP employs around 80 journalists who work in bureaus in all states and territories of Australia except the Northern Territory. It al ...
(AAP) is owned by a not-for-profit organisation. The AAP distributes the news and then sells it on to other outlets such as the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is the national broadcaster of Australia. It is principally funded by direct grants from the Australian Government and is administered by a government-appointed board. The ABC is a publicly-own ...
. Although much of the everyday mainstream news is drawn from the AAP, all the privately owned media outlets still compete with each other for exclusive
pop culture
Pop or POP may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Music
* Pop music, a musical genre Artists
* POP, a Japanese idol group now known as Gang Parade
* Pop!, a UK pop group
* Pop! featuring Angie Hart, an Australian band
Albums
* Pop (Gas al ...
news.
Rural and regional media is dominated by
Australian Community Media
Australian Community Media (ACM) is a media company in Australia responsible for over 160 regional publications. Its mastheads include the ''Canberra Times'', ''Newcastle Herald'', '' The Examiner'', ''The Border Mail'', '' The Courier'' and th ...
, with significant holdings in all states and territories. Rural Press received a takeover offer from John Fairfax Holdings in late 2006, and completed the merger on 8 May 2007.
There are rules governing foreign ownership of Australian media and these rules were loosened by
Helen Coonan
Helen Lloyd Coonan (born 29 October 1947) is a former Australian politician who was a Senator for New South Wales from 1996 to 2011, representing the Liberal Party. She was a minister in the Howard Government, serving as Minister for Revenue ...
under the
Howard Government vi
Act No. 129 of 2006which allowed for changes to the cross-media and foreign ownership laws with the
Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2006.'' These changes came into effect in 2007 and are still in Force. The changes relaxed restrictions against cross-media ownership & control by a single company.
According to
Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders (RWB; french: Reporters sans frontières; RSF) is an international non-profit and non-governmental organization with the stated aim of safeguarding the right to freedom of information. It describes its advocacy as found ...
in 2006, Australia was in 35th position on a list of countries ranked by Press Freedom; well behind New Zealand (19th) and United Kingdom (27th) (but well ahead of the US, ranked 53rd). This ranking was primarily due to the restrictions imposed by the recent anti-terrorism laws. The problem, and the concentration of media ownership, was one of many mentioned on the television show ''
Media Watch'', broadcast on the government funded
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
. As of 2018 these rankings have changed with Australia moving up to 19th, New Zealand moving up to 8th and the United Kingdom falling to 40th.
News Media Bargaining Code
Media freedom
On 4 June 2019 the
Australian Federal Police
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) is the national and principal federal law enforcement agency of the Australian Government with the unique role of investigating crime and protecting the national security of the Commonwealth of Australia. Th ...
conducted a raid on the home of
News Corp
News Corporation, stylized as News Corp, is an American mass media and publishing company headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The second incarnation of the News Corporation (1980–2013), original News Corporation, it was formed ...
journalist
Annika Smethurst's home, looking for information connected to a story she had written a year earlier about new laws that would give the security forces new powers for surveillance over Australian citizens. Radio host
Ben Fordham
Ben Fordham (born 29 November 1976) is an Australian journalist, sports reporter and radio presenter. Fordham currently hosts ''Ben Fordham Live'' on Sydney radio station 2GB.
Career
Fordham began his career on Sydney's 2UE radio station, for ...
also said he was under investigation for some of his reporting.
The next day, the AFP raided the
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
over a story about alleged war crimes in Afghanistan. The search warrant allowed the police to "add, copy, delete or alter" any files they found on the computers.
The incidents caused an outcry of condemnation, even from the
Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders (RWB; french: Reporters sans frontières; RSF) is an international non-profit and non-governmental organization with the stated aim of safeguarding the right to freedom of information. It describes its advocacy as found ...
,
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
''.
In Australia itself, newspaper outlets normally driven by partisanship and advertising exhibited a surprisingly united show of protest on 21 October as they published front pages with the appearance of documents having been blacked out by government censors. The protest demanded journalists gain access to sensitive government material.
Most of the larger media outlets formed a coalition, Right To Know, to represent the protest and demand six changes in legislation. The demands are, for the ability to contest any search warrant of a journalist or news entity while the search warrant is under request, reform of whistleblower protection, new limitations on which documents may be classified as secret, changes in
, exemption from national security laws enacted over the previous seven years, and reforms of defamation laws.
* Kim Jackson, Parliament of Australia- Parliamentary Library, Media Ownership Regulation in Australia, 200