Notice of draft exemption order for
Fetch TV Pty Ltd (Fetch TV)
(Application Ref. 5)

This notice sets out the draft exemption order for Fetch TV’s Fox Sports News channel and invites persons to make submissions to the ACMA within 30 days of 22 January 2013 in accordance with sub- section 130ZY(6) of the Broadcasting Services Act 1992.

Fetch TV was established in 2009 and has been available commercially since June 2010. It is part of a new type of subscription television broadcaster in Australia, delivering content by way of internet protocol over broadband. Subscription Television broadcasting licences were applied for and granted by the ACMA.

Fox Sports News is a pass through channel. That is, like every channel on the Fetch TV Service, it is licensed wholly from the channel provider which acquires program content and compiles the channel and then delivers it to Fetch TV. Fetch TV provides no input into the content of the Channel. Fox Sports News is delivered to Fetch TV by way of fibre access to the signal feed collected from Foxtel’s broadcast centre in Sydney.

Fetch TV is seeking to provide a diverse but complementary content offering to the consumer at a lower price point. Therefore content must largely be available at a low price point (i.e., low licence fees) and all channels must be “pass through” because Fetch TV has no ability to compile channels itself or carry out post or pre-production on content.

Fox Sports News is a 24 hour 7 day per week sports news channel predominantly providing short form news bulletins and segments which are refreshed throughout each day.

Summary of reasons – unjustifiable hardship

The ACMA’s preliminary assessment of the application is that failure to make the order for Fetch TV would result in unjustifiable hardship for the following reasons:

·  Evidence provided by the applicant supports its claim that the provision of captioning services would impose unjustifiable hardship to the applicant as:

o  there is currently no captioning infrastructure in place at Fetch TV.

o  the provision of captioning would impose significant financial costs and would likely result in the removal of the Fox Sports News channel from Fetch TV’s channel offerings.

·  Fetch TV is a recent starter in the home entertainment industry, still in an early developmental stage of establishment. To impose significant additional costs would therefore impose unjustifiable financial hardship on the applicant in a vulnerable time of building its business.

For further detail please refer to ‘Preliminary Statement of Reasons for Application #5’ document.

To view the draft exemption order please refer to ‘Draft Order for Application # 5’ document.

All submissions received up to and including 20 February 2013, will be considered in making the ACMA’s final assessment. Submissions received after that date will not be considered.

Publication of submissions

In general, the ACMA publishes all submissions it receives. The ACMA prefers to receive submissions that are not claimed to be confidential. However, the ACMA accepts that a submitter may sometimes wish to provide information in confidence. In these circumstances, submitters are asked to identify the material over which confidentiality is claimed and provide a written explanation for the claim.

The ACMA will consider each confidentiality claim on a case-by-case basis. If the ACMA accepts a claim, it will not publish the confidential information unless authorised or required by law to do so.

Please note that the ACMA does not acknowledge receipt of submissions.

Effective consultation

The ACMA is working to enhance the effectiveness of its stakeholder consultation processes, which are an important source of evidence for its regulatory development activities. To assist stakeholders in formulating submissions to its formal, written consultation processes, it has developed a guide called Effective consultation: A guide to making a submission. This guide provides information about the ACMA’s formal, written, public consultation processes and practical guidance on how to make a submission.

Please forward submissions quoting Application Reference # 5 to

Email:

Post:
Submissions to Order Applications
Content Monitoring and Review Section
PO Box Q500
QVB NSW 1230

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