Can anyone imagine News Corp or Fairfax or indeed any serious company going six months without a managing director?
The ABC has and the organisation itself was happy about it. Some of the ABC Board were also unperturbed.
The ABC Board itself is lacking any media experience. The same is true of the newly appointed Managing Director, Russell Balding; he is a bean counter from the NSW main roads department. Balding clearly does not have the media experience or tough personality required to run the wide confederation of personalities that makes up the ABC -- and for that reason his appointment will prove popular in many quarters.
Balding's appointment means business-as-usual. The fumbling attempt of Jonathan Shier to bring reform and relevance to the organisation is now at a dead halt. And those who in the past have derided the importance of ratings will no doubt point to the respite in the ABC's steady fall in popularity among consumers as validating the absence of direction! With its new Managing Director, the public broadcaster remains in the hands of the collective that presently controls it, leaving MacDonald, who has emerged as the collective's St George, as the perceived chief spokesman.
The ABC Board were put there for with one key objective -- to appoint and then support a Managing Director to reform the ABC. This does not mean making it a Liberal-friendly organisation. Rather, the task was to ensure that the ABC's coverage relates to and respects the broad range of values and interests in the Australian community. This means wresting power from the workers' collective that controls the ABC. Canberra has clearly made some ineffectual Board appointments but the Commonwealth must now live with its decisions.
The Board failed with Shier. It should have learned in the process that the workers' collective is a formidable opponent and moved to quickly appoint a new Managing Director. Instead Mr McDonald and his merry friends dithered to the applause of collective.
They sent head-hunters scouring the world for talent but inexplicably could find nobody. They searched the local talent shops, again reportedly without success.
As it turned out the head hunters either did not have an eye for talent or were operating with a secret blacklist. Somehow they were told that Nine's massively experienced David Leckie was off the agenda. Similarly, the process failed to call in the equally experienced (and clearly available) former Packer executive Trevor Kennedy. When Mr Kennedy actually advertised his availability, the Chairman rejected him without even discussing it with the rest of the Board.
Mr McDonald has become to resemble Sargent Schultz in the American sit-com Hogan's Heroes with regular utterance of "I know nothing, I see nothing, I hear nothing".
Now this is not the local stamp club, it's the public broadcaster. It not only consumes $700 million of taxpayers' money, but plays a vital role is informing us about ourselves and the world around us and it is giving a distorted, negative view.
But, it appears that the ABC Board after seven months remains at square one and the collective is firmly in control.
Media Watch is back trashing its competitors in the private media with bile and junk journalism. Four Corners pilgers-on. Lateline is into its 1000th segment of the children overboard storey. Radio National is fighting harder then ever for the public sector to reclaim the command heights and to bring back Joan Kirner. JJJ has become the official voice of M1 alias S11. John Howard's effigy remains the centre piece of every dart board in the organisation.
There were worse options than the Balding appointment. In March Mr McDonald reputedly tried to parachute into the job the ABC's Forrest Gump, Max Uechtritz, to the loud cheers of the collective. He was only stopped by strenuous rumblings from the board.
Clearly the Chairman of the ABC Mr McDonald is not up to the job and should go. He has failed completely in his main task of finding a suitable Managing Director. The organisation has been on auto pilot for more than six months. It is malfunctioning and he apparently has no plans to change things soon.
Mr McDonald is protected from the ire and influence of ABC shareholders -- all of us who pay our 8 cents per day -- and from accountability with a no-sack clause in his contract. And his contract is not up for a few years.
Perhaps it's time his other Board members did their job, tapped him on the shoulder and told him Paris beckons. And then start all over, rebuilding our ABC.
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