It is important that the Australian Tax Payers are given the opportunity to question how the ABC is spending their money and where the ABC lies in the new digital age.
The only way for that review to happen is if there is enough public demand for an full Inquiry and audit of the ABC.
So how can we achieve this? We need individuals, organisations, companies and local community groups to start writing letters to MP’s asking for two important things:
1. A full public inquiry into the ABC (similar to the Dix Inquiry)
2. For the Australian National Audit Office to audit the ABC
**************************************
The Australian - 28/09/2011
COMMISSIONING drama is an art, not a science so the ABC should not be damned for financing a series focused on young crown prosecutors with a penchant for sex and alcohol -- even if it needed a $600,000 campaign to sell it and even if it suffered an 18 per cent ratings slump in its early weeks. There is always an element of hit and miss when it comes to content and we recognise the ABC's right to back Crownies just as we accept its right to screen The Slap, the series starting next week that is based on the bestselling book by Christos Tsiolkas, or Paper Giants: the birth of Cleo, which was such an outstanding success earlier this year.
Allowing for some variation in quality and popularity of individual programs is not the same, however, as giving ABC managers carte blanche to do as they please with taxpayers' money. The broadcaster's charter requires it to be an entertaining showcase of creative Australian talent and gives it considerable freedom to decide what that means in practice. What it has meant in recent times, is a lack of distinction and differentiation from commercial television. As Graeme Thomson, the ABC secretary of the Community and Public Sector Union, told a parliamentary inquiry, ABC TV has lost its way. Unlike Mr Thomson, we do not blame this mainly on the outsourcing of production but we agree with him that there is a lack of clarity about the ABC's mission. In drama, as in news and current affairs and the arts, there is often a lack of public purpose in ABC decisions. Too often, it has confused substance with form and spread itself too thinly as it tries to compete with, rather than complement, private operators.
Like all media, the ABC faces challenges in responding to changing audiences and exploiting new technologies such as the internet. But it has an additional challenge because of its unique role as our largest cultural institution. The ABC deserves support but it also deserves to have its role clarified at a time when media has exploded thanks to new technologies; a dramatic reduction in barriers to entry; and global access to information. Ad hoc parliamentary inquiries such as that now under way into outsourcing are worthwhile but not enough. We need a comprehensive, independent review along the lines of the Dix inquiry held three decades ago, in order to find a new vision for the ABC in a digital age.
