CMA’s Hon CEO Barbara Biggins, urges action on the Code of Practice for the Australian Commercial Television Industry (2015), which is, at long last, being reviewed

The Code of Practice for the Australian Commercial television industry (2015) is, at long last, being reviewed.

FreeTV has released a marked-up copy of the present Code showing their proposed changes. But will their proposals improve anything for Australian families and children, or will they just serve the interests of the three commercial free-to-air networks, Seven, Nine and Ten?  In our view, the Code, if approved, will make things much more risky for young viewers.

The review is being conducted by FreeTV Australia and submissions from the public are called for by 11 November. It’s likely that after that date there will be no further opportunities for more community input, and FreeTV will presumably weigh up submissions. It will then put the proposed Code to the Australian Communications and Media Authority for approval.  ACMA will need to take into account that the Broadcasting Services Act section 123 requires FreeTV to:

develop, in consultation with the ACMA and taking account of any relevant research conducted by the ACMA, codes of practice that are to be applicable to the broadcasting operations of each of those sections of the industry.

Then if the ACMA is satisfied that:

 (i) the code of practice provides appropriate community safeguards for the matters covered by the code; and

 (ii) the code is endorsed by a majority of the providers of broadcasting services in that section of the industry; and

 (iii) members of the public have been given an adequate opportunity to comment on the code

the ACMA must include that code in the Register of codes of practice.

Our assessment of the present Code and the proposed changes is that they fail the above requirements dismally.

Firstly

The ACMA published relevant research on content safeguards in 2022. This research What audiences want – Audience expectations for content safeguards. A position paper for professional content providers found that ‘audiences expect clear and meaningful information to assist in making informed content choices for themselves and those in their care, including children’. The major means of making informed choices for children is to use the classification advice for programs and movies. One would expect that such advice would be clearly displayed on trailers for forthcoming programs and movies. It’s not: if shown, it’s often shown too early, too briefly and inconspicuously.  Despite the deficiencies of paragraph 2.5.3, there is no proposal to change it. CMA argues that the paragraph needs the addition of the words which require classification information to be displayed clearly and conspicuously in a consistent position on screen, using a consistent format for the symbol, for at least 5 seconds towards the end of the promotion.

Secondly

The M classification time zones are proposed to be expanded, and to apply regardless of whether it’s a school day or the weekend or school holidays. This expansion of the M zone (from 10.00am to 3.00pm – previously 12.00noon to 3.00pm – and from 7.30pm to 5.00am) not only raises the risk that young children will be exposed to M rated content, but also means that there will be increased opportunities to screen alcohol advertisements and advertisements for R18+ movies and games.

Further

There are also existing pararaphs (eg 2.4.3) that should be changed to provide better protections for children watching family programs and films which start before 8.30pm and end later.

Lastly

In its research above, the ACMA queried whether:

new rules need to be developed to cover live-streaming, catch-up and on-demand services to give certainty to audiences in their viewing choices.

Finally, most current codes of practice do not apply to online content, even when that content appears on a broadcaster’s live-streamed, catch-up, or on-demand platform.

If you want to see the FreeTV Code provide appropriate community safeguards then have your say by 11 November.