General News
27 September, 2023
Socially, Feds get it wrong on advertising spend
EDITORIAL ALMOST 40 per cent of Australians are cutting back on their social media habits in a bid to improve their mental health. That’s almost one in two people switching off or toning down their use of online platforms, according to research...
EDITORIAL
ALMOST 40 per cent of Australians are cutting back on their social media habits in a bid to improve their mental health.
That’s almost one in two people switching off or toning down their use of online platforms, according to research released last week for RU OK? Day.
The social media phenomenon has equally had its wings clipped around the world with research and analysis showing massive declines in the number of active facebook users. People may still have their facebook accounts but few are as frequent in using the platform.
These trends really highlight how far out of step the Federal Government is with communicating its messages across Australia.
Since its election in May 2023, the Federal Government has all but ignored rural and regional newspapers when it comes to an advertising spend. The big cities and social media platforms, in decline based on the new research, is where the Government puts its (our) advertising dollars.
Country Press Australia, of which the Loddon Herald is a member, has been in discussions for more than year to have a fair and equitable share of the Federal Government’s advertising spend placed with newspapers like your local Loddon Herald.
In the last fortnight, many of us have written to every member of the House of Representatives and the Senate - all 227 of them - pushing the case for the Government to rejig, not increase, its advertising spend allocations by including country newspapers serving and informing local communities where Deakin University research has shown 75 per cent of people want their news in their local newspaper. Every MP and senator received a copy of the Loddon Herald. Ironically our edition with the banner headline “Ramping Up”, for that’s what country newspapers across the nation are doing, strengthening the call for change - a change that can be made without cost - by the Government.
CPA has long championed policies to help future-proof regional news services that would also be very popularly received by rural and regional Australians.
The ‘one page per week per paper’ advertising policy implemented by the Victorian Government in 2020 has proven to be extraordinarily successful. If the Commonwealth Government adopted a similar policy it would make an instant and very significant difference to the future of regional news services.
This policy could deliver significant community benefit without any increase in overall cost as funding could be directed from existing advertising programs and budgets in line with previous recommendations.
Research and the principal of keeping country people and communities connected should make the Federal Government’s decision a no-brainer.