ProfDerek Wilding

Derek is the Co-Director of the Centre for Media Transition. CMT is an interdisciplinary initiative of the Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Design and Society, launched in July 2017. 

Derek's principal research areas are media regulation and digital platform regulation. He is the lead Chief Investigator on the ARC Discovery Project, The Future of Co-Regulation in the Digital Platform Era, with UTS colleagues Dr Karen Lee, Professor Anita Stuhmcke and Professor David Lindsay. He is also a CI on the Valuing News project (ARC Discovery) led by Professor Terry Flew at University of Sydney and was a CI on the Media Pluralism and Online News (ARC Discovery) led by Professor Tim Dwyer at University of Sydney. 

Derek came to UTS from an industry-based position as Executive Director of the Australian Press Council. He worked closely on the Council’s responses to the Independent Media Inquiry and the Convergence Review and on the adaptation of the Council’s structure and governance to embrace smaller, digital-only publishers. As Executive Director, he led the Council’s complaints-handling functions and worked with the Chair and members on a review of the Council’s standards of practice.

Before this, he worked for the Australian Communications and Media Authority where he managed the implementation of the federal government’s media ownership reform package and the resulting commercial transactions. He also managed the ACMA’s monitoring and compliance activities on disclosures rules for commercial radio, as well as other content rules such as the anti-siphoning sports list, pay TV drama expenditure and the anti-terrorism standards for narrowcast television. Derek finished his time at the ACMA by managing an operational policy team dedicated to complex regulatory problems spanning the legal and engineering spheres, including the transition to digital television.

From 2000 to 2005 Derek was the Director of the Communications Law Centre at UNSW. He taught media and communications regulation, conducted research and led the Centre’s policy work on issues such as media diversity, cash for comment and telecommunications consumer protection. He has also worked for the Office of Film and Literature Classification and the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance.

Derek is a co-facilitator of the Faculty's IP and Tech Law Research Cluster. His is an editorial board member for Media and Arts Law Review and is the chair of the editorial committee for the International Institute for Communications including its journal, InterMedia. He was previously the president of the Australian Chapter of IIC as well as a board member of the UK-based IIC, and was chair of the expert research panel for the Public Interest Journalism Initiatave. 

In 2025 Derek was reappointed by the Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet as a member the Nominations Panel for appointments to the boards of the ABC and SBS.