The head of Nine Entertainment has called on the prime minister to prioritise a policy to force global platforms to compensate local media as artificial intelligence-fuelled big tech disrupts the revenue models of publishers around the world.
Nine’s chief executive officer, Matt Stanton, said while presenting the company’s half year financial results on Tuesday that the government’s long-awaited news bargaining incentive was at risk of further delay.
“This policy is not just of great importance to Nine and the journalism we so heavily invest in, it will have long-lasting impacts on the health of our democratic nation, the voices of its communities and the broader economy,” Stanton said.
“We encourage the prime minister to give the news media bargaining code a higher priority status on the policy agenda than at present to ensure implementation doesn’t slip into late 2026.”
The policy, an addition to the original voluntary news bargaining code, is designed to address a power imbalance between search or social media giants and media publishers when negotiating payment for displaying news content.
Many deals struck under the original policy have expired and there are concerns that the voluntary code cannot properly address the power differential.
Those concerns have been heightened in the AI era due to the rise of “zero-click searches”, which occur when users find the information they want from engines and AI models without going to the news sites that produce that information.
Stanton said the increasing influence of global tech giants and the rapid evolution of AI was having a significant impact on the country.
“Australia faces some significant challenges from the increasing influence of global tech giants and the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence,” he said.
The proposed laws, which would capture the Facebook owner Meta, Google and the TikTok owner ByteDance, among others, have been delayed amid wider trade negotiations between Australia and the US, complicated by Donald Trump’s tariff regime.
The policy aims to encourage agreements by imposing a government charge on qualifying tech companies, which can be offset when platforms strike deals with publishers.
AI deals
AI is proving to be a double-edged sword for media companies.
While AI-powered platforms change how people access news, Nine said it had struck two licensing deals with “key domestic corporates” for the use of its content to train in-house large language models (LLMs), which are deep learning algorithms.
“There will obviously be some efficiencies coming through but a bit of disruption as well,” Stanton said in response to a question asking whether Nine would benefit from AI.
“We’ve done a couple of LLM deals that we announced today, and there’s a good pipeline of other opportunities, both locally and we’ll see globally over time.”
Nine reported a steep drop in revenue in its six-month results as it faces a prolonged slump in advertising dollars and a struggling free-to-air television market.
The broadcaster and publisher reported a 4% fall in half-year revenue to $1.06bn, with the sharpest declines recorded in its broadcast arm, weighed down by the Nine television network and the digital streamer 9Now.
Nine was able to boost its overall earnings, which measures profitability, by 6% to $192.2m for the six-month period, due in large part to a cost-cutting program designed to reduce operational costs by about $160m over three years.
Nine has undergone significant structural changes, which included selling the real estate platform Domain as well as its radio stations.
It has been changing its business model to focus more on assets it believes will deliver superior returns in a digital world. This includes the purchase of the outdoor advertising group QMS Media.
Nine’s mastheads, the Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian Financial Review, were able to offset most of their print and digital advertising declines by growing their subscription income by 12% over the half year.
The company’s growing subscription service, Stan, has profited from its deal to stream English Premier League games and remains a revenue growth engine for Nine.
Nine declared a 4.5 cent interim dividend and its shares rose more than 3% shortly after it reported its results.
