ABC pours millions into ad contract with oOh!media

The ABC’s looming deal with oOh!media is likely to reignite debate over whether the ABC is pouring its resources into areas where they are needed the most.

ABC chair Kim Williams is seen ahead of his speech at the Melbourne Press Club. Picture: NewsWire / Diego Fedele

A multimillion-dollar advertising deal between the ABC and Australia’s largest outdoor media company, which will see the public broadcaster’s news content featured on billboards and street furniture across the country, has raised fresh questions about the use of taxpayer funding to market the media organisation.

The soon-to-be-formalised contract between the ABC and oOh!media will cost the taxpayer-funded public broadcaster between $3m and $4m annually for four years, and will take effect in the next couple of months, The Australian understands.

The significant expenditure on advertising comes amid repeated calls by ABC chairman Kim Williams for extra government funding for the broadcaster.

“One direct way of supporting Australian democracy is before our very nose – to properly invest in the ABC,” Mr Williams said in an address to the Melbourne Press Club earlier this month.

During that speech, Mr Williams also hit out at Peter Dutton’s promise that if elected to government, the Coalition would “go through and look at where money is being spent at record levels in the ABC”.

“If the ABC is wasting money, then I don’t think that is acceptable to taxpayers,” the Opposition Leader said in the first week of the election campaign.

In response, Mr Williams said: “I don’t think there’s any doubt within the event of Mr Dutton ascending to office that there would be a very early call for an efficiency and, apparently, an excellency review for what the ABC does. Game on.”

The ABC’s marketing budget has spiked in recent years. In the first three months of 2024, the public broadcaster spent $3.8m on advertising, $2m on audience research and $144,000 on promotions.

Across the same period in 2023, the ABC spent nearly $1.8m on advertising, $87,000 on promotions and $1.7m on audience research.

The looming deal with oOh!media suggests the ABC’s marketing spend for FY 2024-25 will again exceed that of the previous financial year, and that could reignite debate over whether the ABC is pouring its resources into areas where they are needed the most.

Asked if the ABC’s deal with oOh!media was a good use of taxpayers’ money, a spokesman for Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said: “The ABC has operational and editorial independence but remains accountable to the public, including through annual reports and Senate estimates.”

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland. Picture: Damian Shaw

Opposition communications spokesperson Melissa McIntosh declined to comment.

In recent weeks, the ABC also spent tens of thousands of dollars promoting last Wednesday’s “leaders debate” (between Anthony Albanese and Mr Dutton) in News Corp’s metro mastheads in Brisbane and Adelaide – an outlay that surprised many in the industry, given the public broadcaster was already advocating for the event for free on its own platforms.

The ABC previously held the contract with oOh! for four years between 2018 and 2022, after which News Corp (publisher of The Australian) signed a three-year deal with the outdoor media company, which expires in the middle of this year.

It’s understood oOh!media was unwilling to pay a licensing fee to News Corp for the use of the company’s news content as part of any future arrangement, whereas the ABC did not insist on such a clause – despite the concept of such a fee underpinning the wider industry’s push for tech platforms to pay for the news content it uses and monetises.

The ABC spent tens of thousands promoting the leaders debate between Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton at the ABC’s Parramatta studio in western Sydney on April 16. Picture: ABC

In a statement to The Australian, an ABC spokesperson said on Sunday: “There is no existing contract and we don’t disclose details of commercial partnerships.

“The ABC conducts some marketing activity to make audiences aware of our content.

“The ABC has a conservative advertising budget, which is on average 2.5 per cent share of the total category expenditure.”

An oOh!media spokesman said: “We have ongoing discussions with leading news and lifestyle publishers about delivering content across our national digital network and will not be disclosing who they are with.”

In September, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that ABC staff working in the public broadcaster’s new offices in western Sydney had complained about oOh!media displaying news updates from The Australian on its screens in the elevators.

“Several complaints were made to management about having to read negative headlines about the ABC from the News Corp masthead on their trip up to the 39th floor, where the ABC is based,” the SMH report read.

The ABC is due to receive $1.23bn in government funding in FY 2025-26.