Australian Government Archives

Canberra, Australia – The Australian arm of media and advertising agency Universal McCann (UM) has renewed its master media contract as the agency of record by the Australian government, effective until June 2024.

Through the three-year extension, UM will continue to provide media strategy, planning, and buying services to the Australian Government, after initially being awarded the contract in July 2018. UM also previously held the Australian government media contract from 2002 to 2014.

“It is a privilege to continue working with the many Government entities covered by the Master Media Agency contract,” said Brett Elliott, general manager of UM Canberra.

“Certainly since the beginning of 2020, there have been complex communications challenges that, from a media perspective, have required creativity and speed-to-market. Our partnership with the Australian Government has been strong and successful,” Elliott added.

Meanwhile, Anathea Ruys, CEO at UM Australia has expressed her congratulations to Elliott and the rest of the team in regards to the contract extension.

“With the review period now finalized the Team is focused on growing their partnerships with their Government counterparts to create brilliant work and communications outcomes into the future,” Ruys stated.

UM’s mother agency Mediabrands has been recently expanding its growth in Australia with the appointment of a new CEO for its digitally-led service agency Reprise.

Canberra, Australia – The Australian government has now announced that legislation is ongoing that mandates tech giants Facebook and Google to compensate local media companies for the content they produce online.

In a report by the Associated Press, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg stated that the so-called News Media Bargaining Code will pass through a parliamentary hearing before official voting by next year.

“This is a huge reform. This is a world first. And the world is watching what happens here in Australia. This is comprehensive legislation that has gone further than any comparable jurisdiction in the world,” Frydenberg stated.

The News Media Bargaining Code, according to an official press release by the Office of the Treasurer, aims to support and sustain public interest journalism in the country, with strategies including “enabling digital platforms to publish standard offers, which provides smaller news media businesses with an efficient pathway to finalizing agreements with digital platform.”

Under the new reform, Facebook and Google will need to compensate local media companies, including state-owned media groups Australian Broadcasting Corp. (ABC) and the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS)-which were originally excluded from the initial law proposal.

Both Facebook and Google have released their statements in the past, opposing the new referendum. Facebook had stated that they will start blocking Australian users and publishers in publishing local and international news on their platform and on Instagram, while Google had clarified that they are not ‘stealing’ content from other people, but rather redirecting users to what they searched.