Australia’s commercial radio industry has warned of irreparable damage to Australian media businesses due to the expansion and market dominance of tech giants.

In a submission to the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC), the industry body Commercial Radio Australia has called for urgent regulations to stem the anti-competitive behaviour of big tech.

CRA chief executive officer Ford Ennals said the need for rapid reform can’t be overstated.

“Australian media businesses are suffering significant harm as they compete with tech giants for advertising and consumer attention,” he said.

“We are calling for mandatory codes to regulate the business behaviour of the big four – Google, Meta, Apple and Amazon.”

CRA‘s submission is in response to the ACCC’s discussion paper on updating competition and consumer law for digital platform services, which was released this month. The ACCC is due to make recommendations to the government in September.

Mr Ennals said that while the industry welcomed recent steps by the ACCC to curb the imbalance between digital platforms and news media businesses, such as the introduction of last year’s News Media Mandatory Bargaining Code, the pace of regulatory change was too slow.

“The growth of tech market dominance is outpacing regulatory action. There’s a real risk that we will simply run out of time to find regulatory solutions to reverse the damage to media businesses,” he said.