Australia’s world-first news bargaining law successfully encouraged Meta and Google to pay dozens of media companies for their content and could be expanded to new platforms like TikTok, a review has found, but understanding the reform’s full impact has been hampered by confidentiality.
On Thursday, the Australian Treasury published its review of the first year of the News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code.
The law sought to address the bargaining imbalance between Australian news media companies and digital platforms that meant that local operators weren’t being paid for the value of the content they were creating.
It was designed with a mechanism that would allow the minister of communications to “designate” a digital platform business like Meta (then Facebook) or Google, which would force them to negotiate and, if no agreement was met, go through a compulsory and binding arbitration process.
In the period captured by the review, no platforms have been designated, yet more than 30 commercial agreements have been signed between the two big tech companies and Australian publishers — including Crikey’s owner Private Media — which the report claims would have been “highly unlikely” to have been struck without the code.
“Looking back at its first year of operation, it is reasonable to conclude that the code has been a success to date,” the report said.
Beyond the number of agreements, the report cites a number of submissions from media companies attesting to the agreements’ benefits. The most specific claims came from the ABC, which said it had created 57 regional journalist positions; Guardian Australia, which hired 40 journalists (although it stated that these roles were not just directly funded by its agreements but made possible due to the financial security); and Solstice Media, which employed an additional three journalists.
While many of the media companies spoke glowingly about the benefits of reaching an agreement, the report noted that Treasury did not have access to the details of each company’s agreements, which “limits the assessment of the code’s performance”.
Meta and Facebook have reportedly paid $200 million to media companies under the deal, including $12 million a year to the ABC.
The report rejected criticisms that the code had failed to address the inequality between media companies, including those who had signed agreements and those who had not — or to ensure all media companies were able to sign agreements with Meta and Google.
“The objective of the code is to address bargaining power imbalances so as to ensure news business receive fair remuneration … it is not designed to redistribute resources across the news sector or to guarantee that all news businesses receive funding,” it said.
The report notes the reluctance to use its designation powers as requested by smaller media companies that have been unable to agree to deals with the two tech giants. Submissions to the review suggested that doing so would lead Meta and Google to tear up their existing contracts with companies.
The report recommended that the ACCC prepare regular reports on the progression of the sector’s agreements and whether other unnamed platforms — like TikTok or YouTube — should also be included in the future. The ACCC could be given information-gathering powers to get details about the commercial deals already signed, the report also suggested.
Finally, the report recommended reviewing the platform again after four years and considering developments in other countries around the world. With Meta’s deal set to expire by then and with the tech giant signalling its intention to stop doing deals with news companies, that report will review the news media bargaining code after its next big test.
