Summary

Introduced with the Commercial Broadcasting (Tax) Bill 2017, the bill amends: the

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 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, , , and to abolish broadcasting licence fees, datacasting charges and apparatus licence fees paid by commercial broadcasters.