Here is a short summary of some of the report’s main recommendations:

-Recommendation for establishment of two separate regulatory bodies: one a statutory body and the other self regulated.

-The Statutory Regulator is to replace the Australian Communications and Media Authority; incorporate Classification Board and make rules on Australian content.

-The industry led body will cover TV, radio, online and print and will review news and commentary standards.  It will replace the existing Australian Press Council.

– ABC and SBS are not required to participate in the industry-led  body but must develop their own codes that take into account the new body’s standards

–  ABC and SBS Charters to be updated with a requirement that 55 per cent quota apply to Australian content on the  ABC and half that for SBS

– Rejects Finkelstein report recommendation for outlets which distributes more than 3000 copies of print per issue or a news site with a minimum of 15 000 hits per year on the grounds that it is “far too low” and very “resource-intensive”

– The licensing of broadcasting services to cease Commercial free-to-air broadcasters licence fees, calculated as a percentage of revenues, would be abolished in favour of a market-based approach to pricing broadcasting spectrum.

– Regulation of media ownership, media content standards and Australian and local content to continue

– Major media outlets to be classified ‘content service enterprises’ (CSE) and regulated based on their size and scope, rather than how they deliver their content

– A CSE is defined by: the professional content they deliver; large number of Australian users of that content; high level of revenue

– All CSEs contribute to a “uniform content scheme” for the production of Australian content.

– Review recommends threshold levels for CSE initially should be around $50 million a year of Australian-sourced content service revenue and audience/users of 500 000 per month, thus potentially excluding Google, Apple and Telstra

– Major international online and media enterprises, such as potentially YouTube, would be required to contribute to producing local content

– A ‘minimum number of owners’ rule and a ‘public interest test ‘ replace the current ‘75 per cent audience reach’ rule, the ‘2 out of 3’ rule, the ‘two-to-a-market’ rule and the ‘one-to-a-market’ rules of media ownership.

– Convergence Review findings to be implemented three stages.

 From: The Australian   April 30, 2012