Press Council makes joint submission to the Competition Commission
JOINT SUBMISSION
The South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF), the Press Council of South Africa (Press Council), the Association of Independent Publishers (AIP), Media Monitoring Africa (MMA), the Forum of Community Journalists (FCJ), SOS Support Public Broadcasting Coalition (SOS) and the GIBS Media Leadership Think Tank (collectively the ‘submitting parties’) welcome the opportunity to make submissions on the Statement of Issues (SoI) for the Competition Commission’s Media and Digital Platforms Market Inquiry (MDPMI).
We commend the Commission for incorporating the majority of our submissions on the draft Terms of Reference (ToRs) into its final ToRs, which we believe appropriately broadens the scope of issues under consideration, setting the stage for a more meaningful MDPMI.
In particular, the inclusion of the AdTech stack – and the focus on the different actors within that stack, such as demand-side and supply-side platforms – ought to allow the Commission to gain a more holistic understanding of the sustainability challenges in the news media market.
We note that the growth of digital platforms in recent years has had a detrimental effect on traditional revenue streams for news media organisations. As a result, we appreciate the importance of this process to create an efficient and fair market in which diverse and alternative routes for the sustainability of journalism can be pursued.
We are of the view that the MPDMI has the potential to play an important role in creating a fair, transparent, and accountable environment in which public interest journalism, and the news media organisations which sustain it, can thrive.
- Read the whole submission here.
