ABC challenged over 'outsourcing of advertising'
Australia’s state funded broadcaster ABC is the subject of reports that its news content is being sold to commercial media outlets alongside advertisements.
ABC
The ABC is prohibited from running advertisements. The content had appeared on Seven West Media's Yahoo!7. The outlet has a content sharing deal with the ABC.
A source told The Australian newspaper that the arrangement was "merely the outsourcing of advertising".
"Someone at the ABC has decided that if they can't put advertising on the ABC, they will take the ABC to the advertisers," Friends of the ABC spokeswoman Glenys Stradijot said.
"By hiring out its logo for commercial exploitation, the ABC erodes the public trust that its insignia evokes.
"If such practices are allowed to continue, in the longer term there is a real and serious risk that the ABC's drive to sell content to commercial enterprises could influence the very nature of the content that it produces."
Yahoo!7 spokeswoman Amanda Miller said: "Under the terms of our commercial agreement with the ABC, we are allowed to run advertising next to that content. How that then reflects on the ABC's charter is a question for the ABC, not for us."
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act does not prohibit third-party arrangements. The ABC has not commented.