Australia media guide

Australia has a lively media scene and is considered to have a relatively free press

Australia's media scene is creatively, technologically and economically advanced. There is a tradition of public broadcasting, but privately-owned TV and radio have the biggest audiences.

The ownership of print and broadcast media is concentrated. Leading conglomerates include News Corp Australia, Seven West Media and the merged Fairfax Media-Nine Entertainment group.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) runs national and local public radio and TV. The other main public broadcaster is the multilingual Special Broadcasting Service (SBS).

National commercial TV is dominated by three big free-to-air networks. Broadcasters must carry a minimum percentage of Australian-made programmes. Pay TV via cable, satellite and IPTV has a strong foothold.

Sports, news, game shows, imported and home-made dramas top the TV ratings. The industry has successfully exported its productions to English-speaking markets overseas.

Media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders says tough defamation legislation and laws on terrorism and national security have reduced the space for "demanding investigative journalism".

There were 23.3 million internet users by July 2022, comprising 90% of the population (Internetworldstats.com).

Some 18 million Australians are active social media users (We Are Social, 2019). Facebook is the most popular social platform.

• Media guides by BBC Monitoring

Press

• The Sydney Morning Herald - daily

• Herald Sun - Melbourne-based daily

• The Australian - national daily

• The Daily Telegraph - Sydney-based daily

• The Courier-Mail - Brisbane-based daily

• The West Australian - Perth-based daily

• The Age - Melbourne-based daily

• The Advertiser - Adelaide-based daily

• Australian Financial Review - business daily

Television

• ABC - national, public

• ABC News - ABC's 24-hour news TV

• SBS TV - public, multilingual

• Seven Network - national, commercial

• Nine Network - national, commercial

• Network Ten - national, commercial

• Sky News Australia - satellite/cable news network, owned by News Corp Australia

• Foxtel - pay TV, owned by News Corp Australia and Telstra

Radio

• ABC - public, operates speech-cultural network Radio National, ABC NewsRadio, youth network Triple J, ABC Classic FM and local services

• Radio Australia - ABC external service, serves Asia-Pacific

• SBS Radio - public, multilingual

• Commercial Radio Australia - industry organisation

News agency/Online

• AAP - Australian Associated Press

• ABC News - public broadcaster's news site

• news.com.au - news site owned by News Corp Australia

• 9News - news site run by Nine Network