Qed

ABC news channel on air soon

ABC management, driven mostly by former Liberal Party staffer and businessman Mark Scott seems hell bent on imposing a technocratic regime on the public broadcaster. In many ways this amounts to privatisation by stealth and Scott’s successes are many and far reaching.

While management has been able to argue that most of its decisions are in the best interests of the ABC it is debatable whether or not they are in the best interests of Australians.

While the ABC service has long relied on technology provided by third parties, dating back to its early dependence on Telecom for signal distribution, the current outsourcing and partnership arrangements do raise a question regarding what is a public broadcaster. Even the term “broadcaster” is questionable as more ABC content is distributed in the non-broadcast space.

A short list of outsourcing and partnerships reveals that the core of the ABC’s technical infrastructure is now captive to commercial operators. These include a lucrative deal with Maquarie Group’s Broadcast Australia for transmission services, a partnership with the privately owned WIN network for centralised TV presentation and an almost exclusive deal with Microsoft Australia for server and desktop solutions.

Fundamentally these arrangements undermine the independent nature of the public broadcaster. However a direct consequence of these outsourcing and partnership deals is to transfer significant amounts of the ABC’s annual budget to a small number of favoured private businesses. This in turn raises questions regarding the decision making and motivations of those dispensing such favours.

Furthermore the impetus for a highly technically centralised ABC based in Sydney is counter to an earlier philosophy of a regionalised ABC and by its very nature one more susceptible to spectacular failure as demonstrated by the new Media Hub’s effort on the recent night of the ALP’s long knives.

Mark Scott has long been at pains to paint this scenario in glowing terms as one that will transform the ABC into a 21st century media powerhouse yet his direct interference with editorial policies combined with decisions which make the ABC captive to private industry players and a wholesale attack on the internal culture of the ABC suggests that your ABC is so only in name and slogan.

Even more worrying is the broader implication of a elitist ABC managed in such a way that bestows as much money as possible into the coffers of private interests while at the same time restricting the actual content of public information in the interests of avoiding contentious or dissenting opinions. The one voice that speaks with authority that is quietly milking the public public purse for the benefit of mates in business. The new ABC model is classic partnership of government and big business combining to manufacture consent, paid for by the very people it supposedly serves.

That’s your ABC.

ABC news channel on air soon.

Media Watch.

ABC to launch 24-hour news channel

Nothing happens quickly at the ABC. Mark Scott’s announcement today has been a long time coming and probably has more to do with Australian federal election cycles than anything else.

2010 is an election year so the traditional media will beat themselves into the usual lather as willing participants in the politics of distraction while ignoring those items that seemingly are beyond the scope of the mainstream news. Questions about our future, our dependence on economic growth and our reliance on carbon based fuel with its attendant greenhouse emissions will no doubt continue to be a preoccupation for the loony left-wing watermelon party while the real business of keeping the good ship Status Quo afloat will be entrusted to the serious politicians and those media that can be trusted to tell the right stories.

Then there is the issue of consolidating the news outlet into one location, conveniently located in Ultimo Sydney where the newsmakers can sup their morning lattes while wondering about how they will beat the peak hour rush home. But Mark Scott says

“No media organisation in the country is better equipped to deliver this channel than the national broadcaster”

so who am I to argue?

It would seem that most of the respondents on the ABC site agree. Hardly surprising since the ABC fan clubs around the country have been amazingly successful in generating a vociferous grass roots mentality that places the ABC somewhere between Mt Everest and Heaven, sublimely untouchable and beyond all serious criticism. All for a mere 8 cents a day….

However all sniping aside, there remains a rather thorny issue here for ABC management, one which I expect they will solve in the usual heavyhanded wasteful manner, and that is just how will they generate 24hrs of new daily content, even if it is “news” and do so without more money? And if they can do it without more money does that mean that they have been squandering money in the past?

But according to Scott the solution is the new technology that the ABC has been busy spending squillions on. This new gear will allow stuff to get re-purposed across the spectrum of ABC outlets without involving a lot of extra people because as we all know people cost money. But as anyone who has watched Sky’s continuous news would know, “news” can be a fickle commodity. Some days there is more “news” than you can poke a stick at, other days, the best news story is the new monkey at the zoo.

Strangely the “news” seems to emanate from the places where there is a lot of media already present. A cynic might be inclined to judge that the media manufacture the “news” to certain extent, they certainly facilitate its transmission to larger audiences and in that context Mr Scott is bang on the money when he says that no else is better equipped to deliver “news” than the ABC.

Will the new ABC 24hr news render the localised state based 7pm bulletins obsolete? Probably in time, yes. Will it supplant the other ABC news services such as News Radio? Possibly. More likely is a scenario where less resources are available for the other news services within the ABC as more output feeds the 24hr appetite.

What we are likely to see is news for the sake of news. Minor story changes between midday and 6pm in order to keep the story alive. Feeding controversy and generating debate on the deep and meaningful issues of our time and getting talking heads on the screens. News, news and more news…all of it brought to you by your big friendly ABC.

As for thoughtful insightful behind the scenes research and development of the kind that used to be the strength of productions such as Four Corners, well who watches that these days, its all in the NEWS!

Will it affect the decline of newspapers, who cares? It’s just another establishment mainstream media player monopolising and managing public opinion in the interests of maintaining a social consensus which conveniently ignores any alternatives.

Snoooooooze…

ABC to launch 24-hour news channel – ABC News Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

The other contest

On Tuesday when the Libs kick out the petulant Malcolm Turnbull for his blatant disregard of Nick Minchin’s point of view there will ensue a small tussle between the hard right of the Liberal Party represented by the mad monk, Tony Abbott or possibly, all-time funny man Kevin Andrews and the “popular front bencher” and family man Joe Hockey who apparently received the anointment of the great John Howard on the weekend.

But another tussle is unfolding. Last week following their rather lame coverage of the original fracas, the ABC announced special programming for Tuesday morning, starting 9am to cover this highly entertaining political soap opera. I mean you just know something is important when the ABC cancels its regular TV to give you the wit and insight of Barry Cassidy and company. But not to be outdone, John Bergin on Sky has just announced via twitter (since twitter is apparently the way we do things now) that he has

Just finished a long teleconference organising tomorrow’s coverage of the leadership #spill. We’ll have rolling coverage from 8am AEDT.

Wow! What a circus. How come both of these networks can throw these sort of resources at what is really a storm in the teacup of domestic politics and completely ignore the huge number of other issues that really matter?

Political coverage on TV

Over 18 months ago the fearless poetry spouting leader of the ABC, Mark Scott made quite a splash about another jewel in the Ultimo crown, a so-called continuous news centre. This worthy initiative was mean to herald a 24hr news service to all Australians, not just those who are prepared to pay for Sky News. According to Scott –

A digital age service, the CNC will ultimately deliver news 24 hours a day to every outlet of the ABC

Unfortunately for the Australian public as viewers, the CNC hasn’t really delivered. Sky News has basically murdered the ABC for speed of getting news to air as tonight’s little fracas with the Liberal Party demonstrates.

In the space of an hour and a half from 7pm, the start of the National ABC bulletin, Sky were all over the story with a complete coverage of the Turnbull presser, as well a series of relevant face to face interviews with senior liberal party politicians. The ABC with a Parliamentary news bureau that dwarfs the resources of Sky could barely manage to get a stream of the Turnbull presser out. As for web content, the problem is that while the ABC journalists were busy generating text and feeding the archaic ABC web platform, Sky is going live on the bigpond site around the country.

The other problem is that the public through their taxes pay for the ABC. The Mark Scott CNC sounds fantastic but as Sky has demonstrated via Bigpond, putting a studio output on the web isn’t rocket science. Instead of grandstanding Mark Scott should do the right thing by the journalists and production staff of the ABC and give the ABC news a chance of being seen to be as good as Sky, otherwise what are we paying for?

Yes Sky are playing the continuous news cycle vs the ABC’s carefully considered and measured reporting but when news breaks, continuous coverage wins in terms of relevance. If you win an audience with breaking news, they are more likely to turn back to you the next time. Of course a complete cynic might observe that Mark Scott really isn’t interested in actually promoting journalism and news coverage at the ABC, he just wants to play tootsies with Planet Janet and her boss (who happens to own a third of Sky.)

The evidence…

Minchin on the ABC Board

Hot of the screen, here’s a presser from the Friends of the ABC. Looks like a negotiation position, the libs will drop the “restriction on the appointment of former politicians etc” if labor drops “the staff-elected director position”. Can’t have staff on the board, must keep the workers in their place. I can smell a revolution in the streets over this one…

Coalition Still Seeks to Stack ABC Board

“The Coalition’s response to government moves to legislate for a merit-based system for ABC and SBS board appointments is extremely disappointing,” said Glenys Stradijot, a spokesperson for Friends of the ABC (Vic).

Today, Senator Minchin announced the Coalition will seek two amendments to the National Broadcasting Amendment Bill – one to reduce the restriction on the appointment of former politicians and senior staff to the boards of the ABC and SBS to only 18 months after holding office, and the other to prevent the staff-elected director position being restored to the ABC Board.

“The Coalition’s planned amendments would gut the Government’s proposed system of merit-based appointments to the ABC and SBS boards. If not carried, they will provide the Opposition with the excuse it presumably wants to jettison the Bill.

“The Bill’s planned restriction on the appointment of former politicians will be rendered meaningless if the Coalition’s amendment to reduce to 18 months the period within which former politicians can be appointed to the ABC and SBS boards succeeds.

“The Coalition’s ongoing opposition to there being one measly staff-elected position on an entire board sends a message that, given the opportunity, its interest is still to entirely stack the ABC Board.

“Senator Minchin’s claim the staff-director is a ‘representative’ of staff is dishonest. The position is not proposed to be and never has been one of representation.

“The potential for conflict of interest for staff directors is no greater than it is for other board members who may feel an allegiance to the government which appoints them. In practice, it is likely to be less, with the staff director’s appointment being the outcome of a secret ballot of a large and diverse group.

“The staff-elected position is important because it ensures there is at least one member of the board with intimate understanding of public broadcasting and who is entirely independent of the government.

“The present government is offering a board appointment system that will help to protect the integrity of the country’s public broadcasters. Sadly for the people of Australia, the Coalition’s interest in undermining the independence of the ABC seems unchanged from when it was last in government,” said Glenys Stradijot.

The ABC spreads its tentacles

The background. ABC presser then Crikey in bed with Smart Company plus New Matilda and of course LP.

So what monday! Chris Wallace takes an early break and misses the big media story of the day. Mark at LP dips out on a plumb gig over at Aunty and Crikey gets set for shake-up, meanwhile Media Watch is also on holidays. Is there something going on here, could the ABC be carefully avoiding scrutiny by waiting for the watchdogs to take a break or am I just overly paranoid? Either way it’s an interesting development.

Perhaps Margaret’s story about Crikey is code for a broader malaise in the Australian news media. So “not vastly profitable, Crikey is now a significant media presence” may well sum up the state of play but it alerts us to the key factors, making money and being significant. I’m not significant and the pay is crap so I often wonder how in this day and age private media companies can afford to pay big salaries to people just to write stuff. Is it about reputations? Certainly reputation is important, naming names is part of the game otherwise we wouldn’t be interested in Jonathan Green. He has an impressive track record and no doubt will add a certain gravitas to the ABC, however is this a good thing? Will Australian’s be served by an increasingly dominant ABC any better than by a Murdoch monopoly? I think there is a huge danger in media monopolies regardless of whether they represent corporate interests or the state.

I going to make an argument that comes from recently working at the ABC for 8 years. During that time the ABC completed a move, started with the infamous Dix report, from a largely disparate and unwieldy organisation to its current centralised corporate structure. Certainly some of those rationalisations were overdue, however the extravagant ivory towers that now represent the ABC seem to lack some of the diversity that used to be a hallmark of the ABC. I think in a very real sense, the swanky new ABC buildings are about the public perception of the ABC and self-glorification of those that work in them. Lacking in the new ABC is the larrikin element that used to inhabit the dusty corridors of the older sites around the country.

When I started, ABC Canberra consisted of an old building circa the late sixties that housed some distinctive and uniquely designed radio studios, a small TV studio and some office space. Attached to the old building was a terrapin hut and adjoining the TV studio was a beautiful enclosed garden where they once made a gardening program. Inside, the place was a bit of a mess. The TV studio had been gutted after the local news service was axed in 1991. At that time Canberra was well served by a long running commercial TV news service from what was once Australia’s largest regional TV station, Capital Television and the new system of aggregation was about to unleash even more local TV news content so the ABC’s departure was, although contentious, only missed by a few.

In 2001 the long running campaign of The Friends of the ABC coincided with market place rationalisations and a new ABC agenda for providing state based TV services which resulted in a restoration of TV news for Canberra. It also signalled an overhaul of ABC buildings around the country and money was diverted into an expensive building program which saw towering edifices like Ultimo assume pride of place in the middle of Sydney. These buildings, the physical manifestation of the ABC, are accounted for in the ABC annual report but I would argue that the intangible products, the quality and nature of the media the ABC produces is more valuable to its audience. These days any media can be produced almost anywhere but production environments, the physical, the social and the general locality still contribute distinguishing features to the symbols embedded in modern media.

The bland consensual pap that has become a hallmark of the ABC in recent times not only reflects a very Sydney centric view of Australia but also embodies the spirit of an expensive and centralised ABC corporate structure, one which rewards subservience and punishes dissent. Despite a significant spread of staff and facilities around the country, most decisions are made from comfortable offices in the middle of the Sydney CBD and most TV, Internet and News content originates from Ultimo. Other than the Parliament House bureau, the ABC in Melbourne and some regional radio, the states provide only marginal input into the mix of media that is your ABC. Importantly, this is not a question of ability or capacity which exists in abundance, rather it is a predictable outcome arising from such a centralised corporate structure.

One exception that is often cited as proof of a wider more representative ABC is its regional radio network however this network is threatened by the convergence of technology and shrinking demographics. It should also be noted that the regional radio presence rarely contributes to the national media mix and has become largely a symbolic flag flying exercise frequently couched in terms of regional disasters. The Town Square idea is simply an extension of this flag-flying with an added gatekeeping role on a smaller budget. I’m sure it is hoped by Scott and others that the addition of online to certain radio sites will help transition the organisation as their traditional audience declines but another key management consideration is maintaining the ABC brand and mindshare.

Here is where we arrive back at Simon’s quote. Significance and profit. The ABC is a significant player both in terms of reach and in terms of resources, particularly financial. In the past the ABC has been somewhat held in check by a relatively robust and viable privately owned media sector but with a rise in corporate concerns for profitability, there is a corresponding shift in favour of the ABC. The claimed new media revolution cannot deliver overnight an alternative to the 800lb gorilla that is the ABC but it can be harnessed by the monolithic media organisation as it seeks to extend its influence. It’s a clever ploy, the ABC becomes a self appointed gatekeeper for local opinion and simultaneously, by virtue of its tax payer infrastructure, undermines alternative points of view which must rely on some form of advertising or subscriptions to survive.

The Scott vision from his comfortable office high up in fortress Ultimo is for a powerful centralised ABC that avoids contention and panders to the cultural elites while continuing to pay lipservice to the ideas of diversity as evidenced by the spread of ABC online and digital TV. Part of the Scott vision also includes an element of self aggrandisement and he clearly wants to claim he did something big for the ABC. As CEO and board member he is very much involved with the internal rationalisation of the ABC getting rid of legacy artefacts such as inhouse documentary production for TV and specialist radio programming like the Religion report. Then there are the attacks on the culture of the ABC disguised as the new management sanctioned “ABC Values” and the earlier plan for “editorial balance” driven through news rooms across the country which complements the famous ABC management decree of “refer upwards”. Mark Scott’s tactic is to push the ABC in terms of aspiration goals such the online Town Squares and the international blueprint while simultaneously undercutting dissent within the ABC by a softly softly approach to outsourcing.

Outsourcing occurs on several levels within the ABC. On one level is the outsourcing of key parts of the ABC, such as TV production and technical distribution. Then there is outsourcing of staff. In a recent article the Age canvassed the number and fiancial success of Australians now working as contractors. Contracts are very popular with management because (generally) they return power to management and remove the onerous restraints of the award system as well as the potential for industrial action. The ABC use of employment contracts has been strategic, for instance entry level work is often filled with short term contracts breeding compliance and in other instances key positions in news are filled by contractors with suitable financial and editorial rewards.

While the ABC is probably no different to any other organisation in Australia with regard to managing its workers and risk, the net effect is an ABC that is more responsive to the wishes of senior management. That in itself is not necessarily a bad thing when management is committed to providing pluralistic and dissenting points of view but obviously a management philosophy that reflects a narrow right wing viewpoint and is unable to cope with internal divisions except by way of top down directives is intrinsically not going to deliver a broad range of opinions or points of view.

You cannot simply attack dissent internally and then somehow expect, as if by magic, for your news media to be cutting edge or breaking new ground. For all of Scott’s theatrics on the new media front, what’s really at work is an expensive exercise in getting rid of subversion in the mainstream of the ABC and broadcasting the same message of conformity to rest of Australia. The ABC is fast becoming the messenger for Sydney’s North Shore, aided and abetted by an image sensitive government in Canberra. Neither is really interested in genuine journalistic values or in robust public debate, it is all about perception management and they are able to get away with it because the private media sector is struggling to stay afloat.

Australia’s democracy would be better served by providing funds that support a wide variety of expressions and enables the pursuit of truth and quality. There is something quite chilling in the extraordinary high level of popular support for the ABC while the private media cannibalises itself and the community sector starves. Anyone who thinks critical analysis can happen when only one voice speaks loudly isn’t thinking. The vast sums of money squandered by the ABC creating its impressive steel and glass facades seeks to hide the fact that quality content, material that challenges audiences and questions the orthodox has been replaced by the soothing balanced perspective that is your ABC.

Albrechtsen leaves her mark

Oh what a feeling! Planet Janet has announced her departure from the board of the ABC and I would personally like congratulate her on her worthy contributions and selfless devotion to the difficult task of ridding the ABC of

the progressive predilection for emotion over reason and stealth over honesty.

Sure it was difficult for the only woman on the board to make her demure little voice heard above the brutish din of male blokeyness but she discharged her duties with a certain panache and single mindedness which has prompted certain emotional and stealthy progressives to label her as the Planet. As in Planet Janet, the one and only. Terribly unkind since just a quick look at her recent blog entries reveals how wide of the mark her critics are.

Only last week Janet alerted us to the Hoax of the Century (that’s the threat of rising sea levels due to global warming), then the week before she exposed the Copehagen Plot to impose a new world order by stealth under the guise of fighting climate change. Fascinating reading. Clearly Janet is committed to exposing the truth and questioning the dominant orthodoxy even if she bases her latest border protection argument on a highly questionable newspoll result. Still it’s useful to have my thoughts on the plight of refugees arriving by leaky boats framed by Janet’s nationalistic concern for border security.

Which touches on my greatest reservation with Janet for it seems that all of the truth in Janet’s world is conveniently located in places normally associated with the right wing big end of town. She likes to refer to the Australian people but it’s very hard to see her connection with the ordinary person in the street when she moves in such illustrious company.

So sorry to see you go Janet, but I wonder, does this mean that your picture will no longer adorn the office wall of the ABC’s 730 Report bureau in Parliament House?

Albrechtsen ABC board retires.

Between a rock and a hard place

Why do the champions of the so-called free enterprise system consistently clamour for fair and open markets yet consistently ignore evidence of market failure? The Institute of Public Affairs is well funded right wing think tank that specialises in spewing out free market libertarian thought bubbles that frequently find their way into the mainstream media. That’s why they exist, to propagate a view the encompasses

the free market of ideas, the free flow of capital, a limited and efficient government, evidence-based public policy, the rule of law, and representative democracy.

Strangely they don’t like Mark Scott’s idea of a expanded trans-national ABC, particularly since Sky News (33% owned by news.corpse) has thrown its hat into the ring, calling for “an open tender process” in the federal government’s soon to be expanded public diplomacy program.

Is it reasonable to observe that Foxtel itself has a complete monopoly on the Pay TV market in Australia? Is that an example of a fair and open market? Of course there is a pretty good argument that Pay TV in Oz is only a big enough market to support one player but all that does is underline the weakness of the free market idea, ie they tend to monopolies like Foxtel or duopolies like Woolworths and Coles.

Besides the opportunistic rhetoric of the IPA there is another problem with the Sky News idea. Sky News has long had the ABC news service in its sights. Historically they have piggy backed on the ABC TV service for much of its nationally significant coverage and operated their Parliament House bureau out of a shoe box, relying on contributions from the rest of the press gallery (particularly the Seven and Nine networks who also have a stake in Sky News as well as News.corpse) to offset their shoestring approach. All good free market stuff, taking from the publicly funded ABC and achieving cost efficiencies in cooperation with other free market players.

But there is a worry here. TV has already done much to trivialise the news agenda and is also guilty of reducing its both the quantity and quality of news and current affairs in response to the profit imperative. Is Sky News somehow exempt from this consideration; are we expected to believe that its shareholders are different to the shareholders of other profit making corporations, that they do not expect a return on their investment? Well that would run counter to the idea of free flowing capital so how else might we rationalise the aggressive Sky News expansion? Could it be part of a long term plan with the intended outcome being one of market dominance?

If that’s the case what does that mean for diversity in the marketplace of ideas, how would a single dominant news provider benefit the Australian public because ultimately, this is the likely long term strategic goal for Sky News, to be the dominant source of news and current affairs in Australia. Perhaps dominant to the point of a near monopoly. Given the pedigree of its owners (particularly the predatory news.corpse) it is difficult to see an alternative motivation, which, in conjunction with other developments in the online news space could see a scenario emerge where all content, broadcast or online, remains quarantined by boundaries that reflect the capacity of consumers to pay.

Given the degree of vertical integration in the mainstream news media industry and the sentiments recently expressed by Rupert Murdoch regarding copyright and fair use together with the financial fallout from collapsing newspaper empires in the face of online competition, the Sky News vs ABC flashpoint look likes becoming a serious test between the so-called free enterprise model (based on advertising and subscription) and the publicly funded model. Historically the free enterprise model had some claim to an imaginary fourth estate but it fails the public good simply on the basis that it is completely dependent on a major player in public policy, the free market system. On the otherhand, the publicly funded model which struggles to maintain independence from the source of its operational budget must at the same time deliver an acceptable point of view to its constituent audience, who are in part, conditioned to expect what the free enterprise model produces.

The Mark Scott plan sounds ambitious and probably is, especially given the the ABC is not exactly renowned for its frugality, however if Murdoch does declare the equivalent of a media war and pursues his dogma on fair use and copyright to a successful conclusion then the cosy little sharing arrangement between the ABC and the other players in the mainstream news industry will be greatly overshadowed with legal uncertainty. It might be seen as a content battle between the big media players but it also speaks volumes about the idea of a public right to know. In a game of poker, this is raising the financial stakes on the one hand and then pretending that all the players have the same chance in a game that’s anything but fair.

A monopoly on news, especially a Murdoch inspired monopoly has dangerous implications for freedom and representative democracy, something the IPA should consider the next time it advocates public policy.

Labor finally honours its pledge

Before the last election the Labor party committed to restoring the position of a staff elected representative on the ABC board, a position abolished by Howard who also went on to stack the ABC board with the likes of Keith Windshuttle, Janet Albrechtsen and a host of other right wingers. Not surprisingly the board appointed a former Liberal party staffer, businessman Mark Scott to the position of CEO thereby completing the right wing takeover of the top level of the ABC.

Plenty of commentators have labelled the staff position on the ABC board as some kind of throwback to the heyday of socialism but few of these commentators actually have any real idea how disconnected management in the ABC is from the actual business of making and distributing media. Of course the politics of the management agenda since the demise of the staff position has been to attack the independent productive capacity of the ABC in radio and TV through a process of amalgamations, realignments and outsourcing while also pursuing an idealogically motivated witch hunt in search of left wing bias in news and current affairs. While the bill proposed by the government is a small step in the bringing more transparency back into the ABC it remains to be seen whether or not the bill get passed and how long it takes before the position gets filled.

In the meantime it is also worth noting that Mark Scott collected an additional $30,000 last year bringing his pay to somewhere between $645,000 and $659,999. Meanwhile, the poor non-executive board members, like Janet, collect a measly figure somewhere between $45,000 and $60,000 – hardly seems worth their while. Obviously with that sort of money on offer, the new independent Nomination Panel will have a hard time finding quality replacements for the likes of Keith and Janet, even if the only thing the board does is turn up to half a dozen meetings every year.

Legislation to strengthen independence for national broadcasters | Senator Stephen Conroy | Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy.

Out-sourcing and now off-shoring the ABC

One of Mark Scott’s greatest achievements, should he retire as CEO tomorrow, would have to be the extent to which he has turned the ABC into a cultural fiefdom for dispensing government funds to the private sector in return for so-called Australian content. In response to a question in a Senate committee the other day Scott portrayed this transition as the –

“way we have migrated a lot of our drama and documentary programs: keeping editorial control but working with the independent production sector.”

What Scott is admitting to is the process of replacing creative productive capacity within the ABC with commercial co-productions using other Australian production houses. Justifying co-productions on the basis that it opens up other financing options is one thing but purposely undermining the in-house capacity of the ABC to produce drama and documentary content is something else, witness the forced disbanding of the Natural History unit of the ABC at a time when public concern was growing over climate change and other environmental problems.

The heart of the matter is the notion of editorial control. Scott and Kim Dalton have spearheaded a dramatic increase in ABC TV’s patronage of external producers, often citing cost effectiveness as a primary incentive. This ignores the substantial investment in infrastructure and personnel that Australians through their taxes have made in the ABC in previous years. Costs continue to rise for the ABC yet actual ABC produced content is declining as more material is outsourced. It is disingenuous of Scott to portray this as financially expedient and deceptive to use the term editorial control without acknowledging the power relationship that exists between senior ABC management and independent producers who are often totally dependent on the ABC for their survival. It is that exercise of financial power over production that motivates a redirection of production from internal ABC units (who have have failed to reflect the views of senior management) to a more vulnerable independent production sector.

But not content with destroying the in-house capacity of the ABC TV to produce anything more than news, current affair and talking head studio material, Mark Scott now wishes to farm out iconic ABC programs to overseas producers. Bananas in Pyjamas (in 3D) is moving off-shore. Notwithstanding the fact that TV has barely managed to make the transition to digital and that HD take-up is still lagging, what is the motivation for a 3D animated version of Bananas? And if the motivation exists, which is dubious, why not exploit the homegrown talents of an industry that despite limitations has still produced oscar award winning animations.

In recent years there has been a distinct trend away from locally produced animation on TV. These figure from Screen Australia show a marked decline in Australian made animations on TV. Yet we continue to train aspiring young Australians in the field of animation. Surely employing Australians to tell Australian stories is implicit in the ABC charter which says the ABC should be

“broadcasting programs that contribute to a sense of national identity and inform and entertain, and reflect the cultural diversity of, the Australian community”

Presumably the only Australian content the ABC is interested in is the free user supplied stuff that will power Mark Scott’s Town Square vision. Paying Australians, let alone paying ABC staff to make content seems like such 20th century idea.