Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the Garma Festival in 2022 (Image: AAP/Aaron Bunch, Private Media)
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the Garma Festival in 2022 (Image: AAP/Aaron Bunch, Private Media)

The press pack will touch down on Arnhem Land for the annual Garma Festival this weekend, where Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has ruled out announcing the date Australians can expect to cast their ballots in the referendum for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

Nevertheless the festival is expected to get the full treatment. ABC’s Insiders will broadcast a segment from Garma, as it did last year, along with a special Q+A program hosted by Dan Bourchier and Patricia Karvelas. SBS’ NITV will run comprehensive coverage too, led by Natalie Ahmat, the network’s head of Indigenous news and current affairs, from Friday through to Monday, and simulcast on SBS with nightly updates on SBS World News.

Nine newspapers will send two reporters and a photographer, and 9News is also sending a crew, as will Seven and News Corp, Crikey understands.

Seeing double

Earlier this month, attention turned to a fresh lobbying agreement signed between Netflix’s US parent company Netflix Inc and the hired guns representing its Australian outpost in Canberra, as anticipation heats up over the government’s coming legislation on streaming quotas.

Lobbying outfit Policy Australia has had Netflix’s Australian business on the books for the past three years. In a disclosure published on July 10, however, it listed the streamer’s US business among its clients, sending speculation among close watchers of the space into overdrive.

Among the most notable policy items on the table for the firm during that time has, of course, been the streaming quotas announced as part of the government’s “Revive” policy package, set to take effect in the middle of next year. As part of it, the government suggested global streamers operating in Australia be obliged to commit funding to “make Australian content”, as is the case for local free-to-air broadcasting services and subscription television operators.

In the announcement, the government said it would open the floor to consultation on how the policy might take shape, with an update due mid-2023. That announcement, though, has yet to come.

Amanda Lotz, a professor in the digital media research centre at Queensland University of Technology, told Media Briefs the silence was likely to be an indication that Policy Australia has done well for Netflix, and that the results yielded could offer the streamer a blueprint in other markets.

One source familiar with the new Netflix Inc-Policy Australia disclosure told Media Briefs the disclosure is more likely to have been a regular statutory update made to reflect the fact that the two parties have a running dialogue, given they worked together on launching the platform’s Australian presence. We’re told there’s nothing to see here, and Netflix declined to comment. 

The news

ABC backflips on plan to abolish local 7pm Sunday news bulletins after public outcry (Guardian Australia)

Matildas smash The Ashes with viewer record (AFR)

AAP staff to send management anonymous letters as parties lock horns over pay (Crikey)

Foxtel aims to disrupt with ‘Project Magneto’ in quest to translate users into profits (SMH)

The ABC’s star investigative reporter packs her things (AFR)

Journalist called News Corp ‘tabloid bottom feeders’ after it queried ABC’s Heston Russell stories, court hears (Guardian Australia)

Streaming subscriptions grow despite surge in cancellations (SMH)

Inside News Corp’s pitch to advertising buyers on the Indigenous Voice (AFR)

Australian ad market strong, despite government spending cuts (Mumbrella)

Anthony Albanese unveils record $362.5k charity haul at 2023 Midwinter Ball (The Canberra Times)

Trump dines with Fox News executives after learning of third indictment (NYT)

Fox, Flutter to close their Fox Bet online gambling business (Bloomberg)

Facebook and Instagram start blocking news in Canada (The Verge)

Netflix reworks Microsoft pact, lowers ad prices in bid for growth (WSJ)

The moves

  • Nine CFO Maria Phillips has made way for Matt Stanton, whose promotion was announced yesterday, along with that of former Discovery exec Mandy Pattinson as a non-executive director.
  • Former Storyful editor-in-chief Darren “the iPad guy” Davidson has taken up a new post with his former employer, The Australian, where he’ll head the broadsheet’s partnerships team. We’re all stoked to have him back.

The tweet