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Fairfax Media has argued the ABC is using its government funding to produce clickbait, outbid commercial competitors and siphon audiences away from the commercial sector.

In its submission to the ACCC’s competitive neutrality inquiry into the public broadcasters, Fairfax said the ABC was undermining the commercial sector.

Fairfax, which publishes The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and the Australian Financial Review, said the ABC’s growth, particularly in the digital sphere, meant there was not a level playing field for it and other commercial publishers.

“It is Fairfax’s contention that the government funded ABC’s aggressive expansion and promotion of its online digital news service has undermined the level playing field within the highly competitive Australian commercial news sector, which is facing a period of substantial disruptive transformation,” the submission said.

Fairfax cited ABC’s win in a contract to provide newswire content over AAP — a newswire service owned by Fairfax, News Corp and Seven West Media — and its “clickbait” content as “market distorting activities”.

“We recognise the importance of the publicly funded ABC as an integral part of the Australian community,” the submission said.

But in order to maintain the diversity of media required for a functioning democracy, we believe that the government funded ABC online needs to refocus its content on distinctive, high quality content, that is not ratings driven, but that contributes to the national identity and addresses market failure, for example in regional areas that lack scale. This would bring its activities back in line with the spirit of the original charter.

In a piece published by Fairfax last weekend ABC managing director Michelle Guthrie summarised some of the broadcaster’s own submission to the inquiry. The ABC has commissioned economic analysis of the ABC, which it has not released, but says shows that the ABC does not crowd out commercial competitors.

“We reject the argument that by delivering news and other content free on online platforms, we are undermining efforts by some commercial media operators to extract revenue from their digital content,” Guthrie wrote. “Our digital remit is baked into our charter, along with the requirement to do public interest journalism and offer broad appeal and specialist programs, such as for kids and regional audiences. We are digital because that’s where audiences are spending time for their news and entertainment.”

The inquiry was called by the government as part of a deal with One Nation to push through its media reform laws last year.

What do you think about Fairfax’s submission? Should the ABC do less online news or more? Write and tell us at boss@crikey.com.au.