Margaret is over-hyping the ABC’s role in innovation and experimentation with the web, a role the ABC claims but cannot truly deliver for the simple reason that the ABC must always strike a balance in favour of protecting its existing audience. Playschool still runs at 3pm, the evening news still comes on the TV @ 7.
The ABC’s position is definitely enhanced by the New_Media landscape, it is not burdened with an expensive but declining newspaper arm and it owns a huge and under-utilised content library. Add to that a highly respected brand name and its easy to see why the Oz might say as they did,
“We will rule the Digital Age”
The ABC can afford to pick and choose what user content to add to its own, just as it can afford to dabble with new distribution tools that spread the ABC word around. But will we, the public, be any better served by an all powerful authoritative voice even if it speaks as humbly and benignly as Mark Scott and the ABC. Might public discourse be better served by more media voices, not fewer? Surely the challenge is not how to further strengthen the already strong position of the ABC but how to ensure the growth of other new media voices?
Your ABC and their News Limited: the media’s empire games – Crikey.
