Commercial Radio Australia (CRA) has lodged a range of regulations and measures to protect the industry from “global tech giants” in its submission to the ACCC.

In its bid to contribute to the ACCC’s inquiry into digital platforms, advertising and journalism in Australia, CRA made its submission today calling for stronger industry protections from third parties using Australian radio content – mostly live radio streams and podcasts.

In its submission, the CRA states large digital platforms should be independently monitored — with the Commission setting terms and conditions of access — to ensure that they do not use their market power to favour their own businesses or to divert consumers from the websites of content creators, thus appropriating revenue and reducing competition in the supply of media content”.

CRA CEO Joan Warner says the industry body would be in support of a Mandatory Standard being introduced to enable the prompt removal of copyright-infringing content, recommending further for the Standard to include hyperlinks to radio station ‘live listen’ websites.

“Typically, such sites provide ‘listen live’ links to station broadcasts or enable consumers to access stations’ podcasts. This diverts traffic – and ultimately advertising revenue – away from the stations’ own websites,” says Warner.

“We urge the ACCC to address this issue in the proposed Mandatory Standard, by requiring digital platforms to remove hyperlinks to copyright protected content at the request of the rights holder.”

In addition, CRA is recommending that the ACCC’s separately proposed review to develop more comprehensive regulatory framework for all platforms to include a focus on domestically-produced content.

Unlike digital platforms, commercial radio is still subjected requirements including local content obligations and election advertising blackouts.

According to CRA, reliable digital audience measurement methodology should be imposed on digital platforms as a condition of access with data collection being conducted by an independent third party.

Last week saw Facebook APAC VP Simon Milner lash back at a suggestion from the ACCC’s preliminary report to introduce a mechanism to oversee journalistic algorithms on digital platforms – including Facebook.

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“More importantly, people, not regulators, should decide what they see in their News Feeds,” wrote Milner in a Sydney Morning Herald opinion piece.

Further Reading:

• ACCC blames Google and Facebook for failing to ‘crack down’ on fake celebrity endorsement epidemic »
• ACCC gives Nine-Fairfax merger the go ahead »
• ACCC threatens Optus, Telstra and Vodafone over ‘unlimited’ mobile data claims »

Image credit:Csongor Schmutc