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What should the ABC and SBS look like?

Monday, 30 June 2008

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Let's start chatting. What should the ABC and SBS of the future be?

During the next six months, the public broadcasters will be compiling and lodging their triennial funding submissions with Minister for Communications Stephen Conroy. And there's an inquiry into public broadcasting under way.

The other great white hope is the Innovation Inquiry presently being led by Terry Cutler, which is expected to lead into a full white paper on innovation. But will the arts, let alone the public broadcasters, have a place?

The Cutler inquiry met to consider its draft recommendations recently and will report by the end of July. ABC watchers are hoping for something to help the national broadcaster, and the ABC made a submission once again pitching its case to sit at the heart of cultural innovation. (SBS did not make a submission).

But will public broadcasting, or the arts industries generally, have much to hope for? Other submissions from the arts industries were thin or non-existent.

Nevertheless there are people on Cutler’s panel who have been thinking about public broadcasting for sometime. One of them is blogger and economist Nicholas Gruen, who earlier this year blogged on the future of the ABC, with ideas for its future. He had an extensive agenda – much broader and somewhat different to that coming from within the ABC.

He recommended, for example, that the ABC should post its entire archive on the web for downloading by whoever wanted to use it. Rather than charging for downloads – which has been mooted by ABC Managing Director Mark Scott, as much as possible should be for free. The cultural benefits would far outweigh the benefits of the revenue, said Gruen.

Gruen also wanted the ABC to embrace creative commons licensing, and, further, to embrace public comment on programming and embrace openness in planning programs by using the interactive capabilities of the internet.

So over to you Crikey readers. Are the public broadcasters fulfilling their charters -- and what should they being doing to take things forward?

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Gabe Monday, 30 June 2008 6:28:27 PM: I have to admit to being a mad fan of Stephen Fry and as such read his recent speech on the future model of the BBC a couple of weeks ago. I may well be very biased but it does seem that his speech is equally pertinent to the future of the ABC/SBS here, and I personally believe we would be much poorer as a nation without the ABC creating 'Content' as the UK would be without the BBC

Mr Fry's speech transcript is available here http://stephenfry.com/blog/?p=44#comments

cheers
Scott Tuesday, 1 July 2008 1:30:51 AM: It's all well and good to talk about reviewing and planning the future of the national public broadcasters, and I believe any such discussions should result in the Rudd Government providing a more sympathetic response both from a political and economic towards both the ABC and SBS than the Howard government, but I fear that in the end any discussion involving only the national broadcasters is missing the wider issue.

For a fully encompassing look at the state of our public broadcasters I think it needs to be ensured that the local community broadcasters are also brought into the discussion. Unlike the SBS and ABC, whose futures after the end of the analogue/digital simulcast are certain the community television networks a much more uncertain future, having good reason to believe that they will be shut out from terrestrial television as a result of the grabs the more established broadcasters made for the available spectrum, something which is apparent also for community radio stations, at the point that radio in Australia goes digital.. Further, most if not community television stations have had to pull all their scarce money together to make the agonising decision about whether firstly they can afford to simulcast, and if not when do they make the switch to digital only, thereby cutting off potentially a massive pool of their own viewers in the process? Whilst realising that some community broadcasters already claim money from state and/or federal, in many cases that barely ensures survival, and that a comparatively miniscule amount of federal funding, compared to that given to the ABC and SBS, could make a world of difference to those employed by community television, as well as ensure local broadcasting is able to continue to shove its way into the free to air market place, and help new generations of on air and behind the scenes talent into the Broadcasting industry.

In this era of continuingly sparse local content coming from areas outside of Sydney, Melbourne, and a few things on the Gold Coast, especially from the commercial television broadcasters, it seems to me that we do need the overarching and nationally uniting ABC and SBS if we are to continue to ensure the health of Australian broadcast media. However, if we can ensure that Community Broadcasters are included in the discussions as well then we as a country can rest assured that the opportunities for up and comers in the industry, as well as preserving access to the marketplace of ideas for broadcasting projects on both the national local level are returned to levels not seen on Australian in many years. Also by doing so we will have a far more comprehensive view of the state of Australian public media, and hopefully be able to better plan out the future of broadcasting in this country, than simply by considering only the ABC and SBS. In the end it is my opinion that all parts of the public media sector suffered or were neglected at the hands of past governments who were rather more interested in the commercial end of the sector, so much so that a significant increase in funding is required across the board to ensure broadcasters that better tailor the full width and depth of the wider Australian community. Sure it's a nice bit of politics to winge about the lack of local content on the airwaves, when compared to for instance the BBC, but without taking stock of the entirety of the public media sector, then we are not really going to really be able to change the industry for the better.
Cheers folks

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What should the ABC and SBS look like?

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