Regional broadcaster Win has not been penalised for shedding up to 20 staff and axing nine local TV news bulletins months after receiving $4.5m in journalism grants.
The government handed out $50m in public interest news gathering grants (Ping) to more than 100 regional newspapers and broadcasters last June to help deal with severe declines in advertising revenue because of Covid-19.
The Ping grants were given on the condition that applicants maintain “existing levels of journalism production and distribution during the grant period”.
Last month one of the grant recipients, Win, dropped nine local TV bulletins, the biggest drop the television sector has seen since the beginning of the Australian Newsroom Mapping Project in January 2019.
For the first time in decades there will be no locally produced TV news bulletins tonight for regional Victorians and Queenslanders.https://t.co/yfWfNl0Hfz
— Eliza Berlage (@verbaliza) July 1, 2021
The chief executive of the Public Interest Journalism Initiative, Anna Draffin, said the mapping project documented the changes in news availability around Australia across newspapers and television.
“Regional journalism is an essential pillar of our democracy, but also an integral part of community resilience and civic and emergency infrastructure,” Draffin told Guardian Australia.
“We are concerned by the contractions shown in the most recent report of our Australian Newsroom Mapping Project, but Piji continues to engage with a wide range of parties to establish practical solutions to mitigate or ideally reverse such losses.”
A spokesperson for communications minister Paul Fletcher did not answer specific questions about the grant. The period for the Win grant ends at the end of the week. The company also did not respond to questions.
“The department receives periodic reports from all Ping grantees and can assess whether any of the terms of the grant have been breached,” a spokesperson for Fletcher said. “In that case there are provisions for part or all of a grant to be returned.”
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young called on Win to hand the money back because the funds were given to it to keep journalists in jobs and newsrooms operating.
“This was never the intent of the Ping program and if media companies are not going to use it to fund public interest journalism, they should give it back,” Hanson-Young told Guardian Australia.
“The Ping funding has been incredibly important in this health pandemic to ensure news gets to our rural and regional communities and that news cameras and printing presses can keep rolling.
“The Morrison government should be making sure recipients uphold the intent of the program and do the right thing with taxpayer money. Minister Fletcher needs to be asking Win to return the millions it has received.”
The local Win TV bulletins in Ballarat, Bendigo, Shepparton and Gippsland in Victoria and Rockhampton, the Sunshine Coast, Toowoomba, Townsville and Cairns in Queensland have been replaced with statewide bulletins.
The new bulletins are now also broadcast into the additional areas of Mackay, Bundaberg, Hervey Bay, Orange, Dubbo, Wagga Wagga, Griffith and Albury-Wodonga.
In June, a spokesperson for Win told Guardian Australia it was too early to say how many job losses were coming but she expected the conditions of the grant would be met.
“The Ping funding agreement is due for completion on 14 August 2021,” she said. “The Win network has no intention of breaking any conditions under that agreement.”
The Nine network also axed news bulletins in July after its affiliate agreement with Southern Cross Austereo came to an end.
Regional bulletins in Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales ended on 30 June.
Last week Sky News Australia launched a new free-to-air channel, Sky News Regional, across Victoria, southern NSW and Queensland, including Cairns, Townsville, the Sunshine Coast, Canberra, Wollongong, Wagga Wagga, Orange, Bendigo and Ballarat.
.png?w=600)
