Regional broadcasters slam ‘mockery’ of reach rules as Nine prepares video streaming play
The Nine Network is set to follow rival Seven’s lead and begin live streaming its TV channels Nine, Gem and Go online.
CEO of Southern Cross Austereo Grant Blackley this morning told Mumbrella its affiliate’s move once again demonstrated the need for reform to “archaic” media laws which were being made a “mockery” of by the metropolitan TV networks.
“Modern technology enabling the metropolitan networks to stream their programs across all of Australia makes a mockery of the archaic media ownership laws and in particular the reach rule,” Blackley told Mumbrella.
I was thinking about this announcement this morning.
Traditional broadcasters are missing the point here. I am not close to the definition of what 75% of the population is within this specific law, but wouldn’t streaming allow anyone to quantify exactly how many unique visitors are viewing their streams and thereby upon audit be able to ‘prove’ that they are streaming to below 75% of the Australian population?
Reach in traditional media is based on algorithms and estimations, reach in digital is measured in such a precise manner you could argue that Nine are well within the limitations of the Reach rules.
Would that ‘precise manner’ be monthly unique browsers?
The same monthly unique browsers that peaked at 133 million in Australia, before the market realised that traffic is a poor surrogate for audience?
Hey thanks for that,
Yes, my theory was unique browsers could be used as a metric. Thanks for clarifying it not recognised to be effective.
These rules were to prevent one media company completely owning an audience and therefore having too much editorial influence. Imagine a world where Rupert owned all major media outlets in an area.
The problem for these laws now is that new media (I can’t believe I just said that) is both borderless and of scale, so these rules can’t be enforced beyond traditional media.