The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has found Prime Television (Victoria) Pty Limited breached election advertising blackout rules during the May 2025 Federal Election campaign.
Under blackout rules, broadcasters cannot air election ads on TV or radio during election blackout periods, which run from the end of the Wednesday before the relevant polling day until the close of the poll on polling day.
An ACMA investigation found that the licensee, Prime Television Victoria, aired 23 election advertisements on the Racing.com free-to-air TV channel on Thursday 1 May ahead of the Saturday 3 May election.
ACMA member Carolyn Lidgerwood said all broadcasters needed to have processes in place to ensure compliance with election advertising blackout rules.
"These rules are licence conditions applying to commercial television broadcasting licensees under the Broadcasting Services Act. They have been in place for many years. We expect that broadcasters should understand their statutory obligations and be focussed on compliance," Ms Lidgerwood said.
Content on Racing.com is produced and broadcast by Racing Victoria under a broadcast partnership with the licensee.
The licensee submitted that under its broadcasting partnership arrangement it had a reasonable expectation that Racing Victoria would ensure all content broadcast would comply with the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 (BSA).
However, the ACMA does not consider that licensees can contract out their obligations to ensure compliance with broadcasting legislation and codes.
Following this incident the licensee has reviewed its procedures to ensure that a similar situation will not occur again.
The ACMA is considering appropriate enforcement action.
