Summary

Introduced with the Commercial Broadcasting (Tax) Bill 2017, the bill amends: the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 to: abolish the ‘75% audience reach rule’, which prohibits commercial television broadcasting licensees from controlling licences whose combined licence area populations exceed 75 per cent of the Australian population; abolish the ‘2 out of 3 cross-media control rule’, which prohibits control over more than two out of three regulated media platforms in any one commercial radio licence area; provide additional local programming obligations for regional commercial television broadcasting licensees; and require the Australian Communications and Media Authority to undertake a review by 1 July 2021; the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 and Broadcasting Services (Events) Notice (No. 1) 2010 to amend measures relating to the anti-siphoning scheme and the anti-siphoning notice, including extending the automatic delisting period and removing the multi-channelling rule; and five Acts to provide for collection and assessment arrangements for the new transmitter licence tax. Also establishes a transitional support payment scheme for certain commercial broadcasters; and repeals the Broadcasting Services (Datacasting Charge) Regulations 2001, Datacasting Charge (Imposition) Act 1998, Datacasting Transmitter Licence Fees Act 2006, Radio Licence Fees Act 1964 and Television Licence Fees Act 1964 to abolish broadcasting licence fees, datacasting charges and apparatus licence fees paid by commercial broadcasters.