Australia’s National Home Screen Database

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Australia's Home Screen
 

A National Transparency Initiative

The Connected TV Marketing Association (CTVMA) is advancing the development of Australia’s first National Home Screen Database, a standards-based transparency initiative designed to support implementation of the Smart TV Prominence Framework commencing 1 January 2026. Developed in consultation with the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), smart-TV manufacturers and operating-system providers, the database will provide a neutral mechanism for documenting how home-screen layouts, app placement and discoverability settings are applied across devices sold in the Australian market. This work reflects CTVMA’s broader mandate to strengthen transparency, interoperability and predictable governance across the connected-TV ecosystem.

TV Prominence for Australian Free-To-Air

A purpose of the Home Screen Database is to support the implementation of TV prominence requirements, ensuring Australian Free-To-Air (FTA) applications are consistently available and easily discoverable across all connected TVs sold in Australia from 1 January 2026. Prominence reforms recognise the continuing public-interest role of Free-To-Air broadcasters, including local news, emergency broadcasting and cultural representation. By establishing a unified evidence base for home-screen structures across OEMs and operating systems, the CTVMA Database enables regulators, manufacturers, streamers and broadcasters to deliver a consistent, predictable and transparent experience to Australian audiences.

CAMLA Australian Content Law Seminar

The CTVMA presented the Home Screen Database at the recent CAMLA law seminar on The Future of Australian Content, Anti-Siphoning and Prominence, highlighting the increasing importance of independent, device-level transparency frameworks within modern broadcasting and content-governance policy. The seminar demonstrated strong cross-sector recognition that prominence, discoverability and content pathways now sit at the intersection of regulatory requirements and commercial design. CTVMA’s proposed database was identified as a practical and future-ready mechanism to support these evolving expectations through a neutral and technical standards lens.

New Australia Streaming Content Quota

The database is also being structured to support the compliance environment created by the Subscription Video On Demand (Streaming) Services Bill 2025, passed by both houses of Parliament in November 2025. As ACMA implements the new streaming content quota from 1 January 2026, industry will require independent visibility over how Australian content is surfaced, recommended and presented in smart-TV environments. The Home Screen Database will support this need by providing an objective record of home-screen layouts, content pathways and prominence behaviours, helping to illuminate the relationship between content obligations and device-level discoverability.

Home Screen Database in March 2026

The National Home Screen Database website will launch publicly in March 2026, providing access to baseline datasets, taxonomy standards, documentation protocols and reporting tools. As prominence obligations and streaming content requirements commence in early 2026, the Database will serve as a core technical resource for broadcasters, manufacturers, streamers, agencies and policymakers seeking clarity, transparency and interoperable governance across Australia’s connected-TV marketplace. Visit our policy hub for more information.

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