Independent publisher warns the NBI distribution framework risks concentrating public-purpose funding on the same legacy conglomerates that used the original $200 million in annual Code payments for share buybacks and acquisitions while cutting 450 journalists
Sydney, Australia – February 2, 2026 – Man of Many, one of Australia’s largest independent digital publishers, has formally called on the Federal Government to amend the draft News Bargaining Incentive (NBI) legislation before it entrenches the same structural concentration that defined the original News Media Bargaining Code (NMBC).
In two detailed submissions lodged on 8 May 2026, one to the Treasury on the Charge and Administration Bills and one to the Department of Infrastructure on the proposed distribution framework, Man of Many identified five material gaps in the exposure draft legislation and put forward a series of structural amendments designed to ensure the regime delivers funding to Australian journalism rather than to the corporate balance sheets of the publishers that happen to employ the most journalists.
Man of Many’s position aligns with the joint statement issued on 19 May 2026 by the Local and Independent News Association (LINA), the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia (CBAA), the Digital Publishers Alliance (DPA) and allied organisations, which called for a mandatory minimum of 25 per cent of all platform deals to be directed to small and medium publishers, a materially higher offset rate for SME deals, and a 15 per cent set-aside from the levy distribution pool for smaller and independent publishers.
The “Zero Deals” Scenario Is No Longer Hypothetical
A critical question the legislation must confront is what happens if platforms elect not to negotiate. The NBI’s offset architecture assumes platforms will strike commercial deals with publishers. But there is no obligation to do so. A platform may rationally conclude that paying the 2.25 per cent levy in full and passing the cost through to advertisers and end users is preferable to setting a global precedent of bargaining with media businesses.
Meta has already demonstrated this logic in practice, withdrawing from its NMBC-era publisher deals in 2024 and removing news from Facebook and Instagram in Australia. There is no public indication it intends to re-enter commercial negotiations under the NBI framework.
If platforms pay the levy rather than negotiate, the entire revenue flows into the Statutory Payment Scheme, a residual distribution pool that the consultation paper proposes to allocate on the basis of full-time equivalent (FTE) journalists employed by ACMA-registered news businesses. The scale of that eligibility gate is worth pausing on. ACMA’s own Media Diversity Measurement Framework, published in May 2026, identifies more than 2,730 professional news outlets operating in Australia. The ACMA News Media Bargaining Code register, the proposed sole eligibility pathway for NBI distribution, currently lists approximately 83. Man of Many is counted in ACMA’s broader diversity framework as a professional news outlet. It is not on the register. The same regulator that measures Australian news diversity at 2,730 outlets is gating the distribution of public-purpose journalism funding to fewer than 3 per cent of them.
Under a pure FTE-proportional formula applied to that narrow register, the four largest journalism employers in Australia (News Corp Australia, Nine Entertainment, the ABC and Seven West Media) would absorb the substantial majority of funds, replicating the 60 to 70 per cent concentration that characterised the original Code.
This is not a theoretical risk. It is a foreseeable outcome that the legislation, as currently drafted, does not prevent.
The Receipts from the Original Code
The empirical record of the NMBC is directly relevant. An estimated AUD $200 to $250 million per year in platform payments flowed to Australian publishers under the original Code, with approximately 60 to 70 per cent directed to News Corp Australia, Nine Entertainment and Seven West Media.
In the same period:
- News Corp’s parent company launched a USD $1 billion share buyback program in July 2025, with more than USD $175 million repurchased by April 2026, alongside 11 consecutive years of dividends and its second-most profitable year on record.
- Nine Entertainment acquired billboard company QMS Media for AUD $850 million in March 2026, paid an 8.59 per cent dividend yield, and in June 2024 cut 200 jobs, 90 of them in Publishing, affecting the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the AFR, Brisbane Times and WAtoday.
- Seven West Media announced a AUD $100 million cost-out program in June 2024, with 100 to 150 redundancies.
- Approximately 450 journalists were made redundant across the three commercial publishers in 2024.
- The Public Interest Journalism Initiative recorded 183 newsroom closures and 175 contractions over five years, with 70 per cent of the damage in regional Australia.
As former Nine CEO Chris Janz acknowledged to Mumbrella, the majority of annual NMBC funding was used to pay down debt or reward shareholders rather than to invest directly in new journalism.
No public obligation existed, or currently exists, for NMBC recipients to disclose how the funds were used. The Treasury statutory review flagged this gap in December 2022. Five years on, the NBI distribution framework, as drafted, does not close it.
Man of Many’s Three Structural Amendments
Man of Many’s submissions propose three headline amendments that would close the gap between the policy’s stated intent and its likely real-world effect:
- Close the AI/LLM exemption. Charge Bill clause 9 explicitly excludes services provided solely or primarily by large language models from the definition of internet search engine service. This exempts ChatGPT, Perplexity, Anthropic’s Claude and AI-only successors from the regime entirely, despite AI summarisation being the principal mechanism of contemporary value extraction from publisher content. Industry data points to median referral traffic declines of 20 to 60 per cent directly attributable to AI search features. The definition should be technology-neutral: if a service generates revenue from Australian users above the $250 million threshold and uses Australian publisher content to serve those users, it should be in scope.
- Add a 10 per cent single-recipient cap and a 30 per cent Independent Diversity Floor. A 10 per cent cap on the distribution pool, tighter than the Charge Bill’s 25 per cent offset cap, prevents the FTE formula from concentrating funding on the same legacy newsrooms. A 30 per cent floor reserved for publishers with revenue under $50 million provides a structural minimum allocation for the SME tier. PIJI’s research framework, already cited in Treasury’s own consultation paper, is the reference for defining qualifying public-interest journalism.
- Mandate use-of-funds reporting. All recipients of NBI distributions above a de minimis threshold should publish annual reports disclosing the proportion allocated to journalist salaries, technology and audience development, executive compensation, and capital management activities. Without this, the regime asks Australians to fund publishers on trust, with five years of evidence that trust is misplaced. Man of Many’s submission proposes a JobKeeper-style verification mechanism requiring payroll evidence that funds have flowed through to journalism salaries.
Eligibility Must Be Substance-Based
The NBI creates an eligibility inconsistency between its two sides. On the charge side, the Administration Bill (clause 11(1)(b)) allows platforms to do offset-eligible deals with publishers regardless of ACMA registration, accepting substantive eligibility. On the distribution side, the consultation paper proposes ACMA registration as the sole eligibility pathway.
Man of Many was registered on the ACMA News Media Bargaining Code register from November 2025 until 13 January 2026, when registration was revoked alongside Broadsheet Media and Urban List, three Mumbrella Publish Award-winning independent publishers that met all six eligibility tests at the time of registration. The structural exclusion of digital-native publishers under the ACMA process is not a one-off. It is a pattern.
If ACMA registration remains the sole distribution-side gate, and platforms refuse to negotiate deals, the independent sector is excluded from the only live mechanism by which levy revenue reaches publishers.
A Call to the Platforms
Man of Many acknowledges the constructive elements of the NBI design, including the universal levy structure that closes the Meta withdrawal loophole, the 170 per cent SME offset rate that makes deals with independent publishers more tax-efficient than deals with incumbents, and the anti-avoidance provisions modelled on Part IVA of the Income Tax Assessment Act.
The 170 per cent SME offset is a genuine opportunity for platforms. Deals across the long tail of independent publishers are now structurally more cost-effective than ever. The opportunity is to build a portfolio of Australian publisher relationships that reflects the actual diversity of the Australian market, rather than minimising compliance through four large deals with incumbents.
Ends.
For additional information, please contact:
Scott Purcell – Co-Founder, Man of Many – scott@manofmany.com (+61 403 496 680)
About Man of Many
Man of Many is Australia’s largest men’s lifestyle site and the country’s first 100 per cent carbon-neutral digital publisher. Established in 2012, Man of Many’s mission is to inform, engage, and empower Australians with comprehensive, accurate, and timely content across lifestyle, culture, technology, and significant public issues. With over 2 million monthly readers and over 900,000 social followers, Man of Many provides premium yet approachable content that resonates on a global scale. Proudly independent and award-winning, Man of Many is dedicated to their purpose of empowering people to make positive investments in themselves and their communities.
