ABC managing director Mark Scott's response to the Abbott government's funding cuts demonstrates exactly why the public broadcaster is long overdue for comprehensive reform.
Scott has made cuts to the ABC in two main areas: to the parts of the ABC that make it unique, and to those areas that do the most political damage to the government. And he's used the cover of the funding cuts to invest even more heavily in the parts of the ABC that most directly compete with existing private providers.
All governments have scarce resources. Money spent on public broadcasting is money that can't be spent (or saved) somewhere else. If governments fund public broadcasting at all, then it must be to generate the maximum value for taxpayers' dollars. It doesn't make much sense to subsidise content that is already provided by the private sector. Public funding can only be justified if it results in the provision of a unique product that would not exist without taxpayer support.
And yet when faced with a relatively modest 4.6 per cent reduction in government funding, the ABC board and management chose to cut regional bureaus, the 7.30 state editions, local sports coverage, Radio National's Bush Telegraph, and TV production outside Melbourne and Sydney. But these are the parts of the ABC least replicated by the private sector, and which have the strongest case for public subsidy.
It's unlikely to be a coincidence that the cuts also happen to be the areas of the ABC that will cause the government the most political pain. A drop in the headcount at the ABC's palatial headquarters in Ultimo in Sydney is not likely to register in too many Coalition electorates. But closing a few regional radio posts and the Adelaide production studio certainly will. Unsurprisingly, the ABC has obviously declined to take up many of the suggestions made in the review of its operations commissioned by Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who argued efficiencies and back-office cuts could quarantine programming from cuts. ABC management would know that the more painful the process is for the government, the less likely it is to be repeated.
WRONG TARGETS
Instead of paring back the areas of the ABC that most closely compete with private media providers, the ABC will now invest more than ever in its digital arm, particularly news and current affairs — arguably the most competitive and well-serviced field of media in Australia today. In the past 20 years, Australians' access to news and current affairs online has exploded. Thanks to the internet, we can now get the best news from around the world extremely cheaply and from an astounding array of sources. Lower barriers to entry has meant that dozens of new players have entered the market, such as local offshoots of The Guardian and The Daily Mail, while existing players in Fairfax and News Corporation have significantly expanded their online offerings.
This is not an undercatered market desperate for substantial taxpayer investment. On the contrary, it's the part of the ABC where cuts are most warranted.
Mark Scott says the ABC is required to invest in digital by its charter. True, but only since the charter was amended in 2013 by then communications minister Stephen Conroy, and the ABC's investment in digital was by then very well advanced.
But the ABC's charter also requires that it "take account of ... the broadcasting services provided by the commercial and community sectors of the Australian broadcasting system", and it's this part of the charter the management has most openly flouted. The ABC failed to take into account that Sky News already offered a 24 hour news channel for those Australians who wanted it when it established ABCNews24 in 2010. It failed to take into account the number of private fact-checking initiatives, such as PolitiFact, when it launched ABC Fact Check in 2013 (who've now been largely crowded out, thanks to the ABC). And they certainly failed to take account of the cornucopia of free online opinion when it launched The Drum opinion website in 2009.
Though the Abbott government's attempts are laudable, they are simply budget savings and leave wider questions about ABC reform unresolved, such as whether it would be viable as a privatised operation. The ABC is long overdue for a proper review of the scope of its operations, to ensure it is spending scarce public funds in the areas of greatest need.
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