What ABC managing director Jonathan Shier is attempting to do is turn the ABC into something it is not -- a national broadcaster.
Of course the ABC, claims to be the national broadcaster -- to be your ABC. In reality it is a workers' collective run by clique of aging baby-boomers, who hire and fire in their own image and likeness and who cater to people with similar views, interests and prejudices.
What Shier is trying to do is to re-assert public ownership of the ABC, to re-connect it back to the broad range of national opinion and interests. Unless it is so re-connected, it will continue to fall down the list of budget priorities.
He has enormous problems, starting with a media pervaded with friends of the ABC who like the ABC as it is -- because it caters to them. As he tries to re-capture the ABC for the general public, this highly articulate group with easy media access will attack him for interfering with their fiefdom.
In the end, he or someone like him will win. The demands of the collective are impossible to achieve. What they demand is more money to do more of the same with the same people for a narrow and shrinking audience.
Taxpayers are not going to fork-out more money for the ABC, unless it caters more thoroughly and distinctively to their needs. ABC funding has been declining in real terms steadily since 1984 under both Labor and Coalition Governments and the reason is clear. The ABC has increasingly catered to a well-to-do elite who have other options available to them and have the wherewithal to purse these options. In other words, it is middle-class welfare. Its budget has been cut accordingly.
The universities have experienced the same downward trend in government funding per student and for the same reasons. They have, albeit not without complaint, found alternative sources of funding in the form of more -- and more diverse -- students, higher education contribution scheme fees and fees from foreign students.
The ABC must do something similar.
As Shier realises, technology is not on the ABC's side. If Australia ever moves to a broadcasting regime not based on protecting the interests of the incumbents, such as Kerry Packer, there could easily be an explosion in broadcasting delivery vehicles. Then the argument for a publicly-funded broadcaster may become very thin. It would be at least as sensible to cater for niche audiences by a system of purchasing blocks of time on commercially-owned broadcasters.
Even if governments continue to protect incumbent broadcasters, the ABC faces a threat from the conversion to digital television. If it does not match the technology of the other free-to-airs it will lose market share -- particularly in areas, such as sport, where it rates well. On the other hand, multi-channelling provides the potential to more carefully meet the many niche markets open to a public broadcasters, yet it will not received the money from taxpayer to fund the conversion.
The only thing to do is what Shier proposes -- to make savings in existing areas to fund digital initiatives. The news and current affairs empire, particularly a 7.30 Report which loses about a third of the audience that ABC News gains, is an obvious target. Yet what was the response of the collective? No cuts, just more money. They just do not get it.
The ABC has a great strength in its national coverage. That truckies on the road, cockies driving their tractors and shearers in the shed can all be informed on public events, current trends, movements in literature, special interest subjects is a great national asset. But it is a national asset being crippled by the narrow views of the collective.
Connecting to a wider audience does not mean dumbing down: it means covering a broader range of interests from a broader range of perspectives. The process of change does require new people, including a managing director such as Shier, from outside the public broadcaster. It does require a more commercial focus in order to broaden the client base. It does require new structures, if for no other reason than to shake up the collective.
The change will necessarily be messy: revolutions always are. And it might not work. The collective is a formidable opponent and has won most battles in the past.
But change is necessary. If nothing is done, the ABC will certainly become steadily duller and eventually just fade away due to its own irrelevance.
No comments:
Post a Comment