Current licensing rules for free-to-air commercial TV broadcasters in Australia require a set number of hours of original, locally produced drama, nonfiction/news and children’s programming each year. Those broadcasters are lobbying the conservative national government to eliminate those rules entirely, but even their “fallback” position, accepting a “simplified” quota system, would see spending on Australian programming fall by half and the loss of up to 4,600 jobs, says Screen Producers Australia. – The Guardian