A blanket ban on gambling advertising on television, will impact other Australian content, a panel heard at the Australian Content in the Streaming Era Symposium at ACMI, last week.
Renee Quirk, Seven Commercial Director, Sport, said gambling revenue was a critical part of the network’s ability to buy sports rights, broadcast niche sports and fund other content at a time when the ad market is under pressure.
“Anyone who’s reading the press or following any of the commercial free to air networks, probably almost any media organisation, would be aware that advertising revenue is challenged. It’s not rivers of gold out there. It’s a tough market,” she said.
“So to have a chunk of revenue stripped out from the gambling and wagering area is a significant impact on our ability to fund sports rights going forward. So whilst we absolutely recognise, and as a parent and as a community minded citizen, I understand that it needs to have a balance. It’s a key community issue. I understand that. At Seven we’re looking for a balance, and I’m desperately, personally keen to keep being able to fund the sports that the Australian public deserves, and we want to show.
“It’s going to have an impact, like it or not. We don’t want people to think, you can just say’ ‘blanket ban, it’s gone’ without understanding there’s a very real commercial impact on organisations such as Seven.”
Bridget Fair, CEO of Free TV Australia, noted there are already strict rules around gambling advertising in broadcast, banned from whistle to whistle, five minutes before and after play, and limited to one during scheduled breaks.
“That said, we’re having the debate that we’re having, there’s going to be a lot less gambling ads, not just in scheduled breaks, but across the board,” she said.
“As Renee said, we do need to think about what that means for having a free advertiser funded media sector here in Australia, which is an important thing that I think people look to and rely on. Because it funds a lot of other things, apart from free Sport. It brings you a lot of trusted News, it spends a lot of money on Australian content, employs a lot of people. I think we need to have a better conversation around if we are taking that revenue out, it’s not a magic pudding. It doesn’t just magically regrow.
“People keep saying, ‘Why isn’t it like tobacco advertising?’ Because it’s not 1988 that’s why. There’s more than three channels in the market where people can advertise, revenue is declining and there’s more competition.
“So if we’re going to have this conversation around reducing the amount of gambling advertising, then we need to really think carefully about what it means for the kind of community we want to live in and the sort of media sector we want to have here in Australia.”
The government is still preparing its response to a 2022 inquiry into gambling advertising. Australians spend and lose more to gambling than people in any other country in the world, amassing $25 billion in bets every year.