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"The ABC is an indulgence we can no longer afford"
There's been a bit of a fuss about the Australian Broadcasting Commission over the past week or so, since the Federal Council of the Liberal Party passed a (non-binding) resolution that the ABC should be privatised.
In this context, I found this opinion piece by the President of the Young Liberals, explaining why he thinks "the ABC is an indulgence we can no longer afford", and thought it was an interesting read.
So I am not Australian, and know little about Australian politics, just to get that out of the way. But the author makes three main points in this article that I disagree with:
1. ABC provides news that few people want and is irrelevant in today's internet
But the author also defeats his point by admitting near the end that if the ABC were privatized, then private news services would step in and provide any missing services that the ABC provides today. If there's enough demand that the private market, which is generally loath to touch something that doesn't provide a strong financial return on investment (aka irrelevant in this case), then I wouldn't say it's irrelevant or useless, as there's clearly strong demand for it. Furthermore, I also disagree that YouTube is a good substitute for public news. YouTube is filled with misinformation, and actively targets users with the kind of news it thinks you want to hear, in hopes of getting more ad money. It also exposes Australians much more heavily to the kind of misinformation war we have in the US right now.
2. The ABC is too expensive.
This is perhaps his strongest point, I don't know much about Australia's economics, but I was under the impression that it's doing pretty well for itself right now? If there's no lack of income, I don't think it makes much sense, especially if that money goes to something that will provide an even worse return on investment. Furthermore, I don't think the author is taking into account some of the positive economic impacts a public news service has; for example, it may employ reporters in poor rural regions, where work is often hard to come by, or by giving small artists a platform to earn some income. Cutting the ABC might mean providing some of them welfare, which wouldn't save any money at all.
3. A public news network by its very design is a threat to private news stations, since it doesn't need to provide money, and it provides worse content.
This is I think the author's weakest point. The UK has the BBC, Germany has the ARD, and the US has the PBS; and all three countries have healthy and vibrant private news services. Furthermore, their public services are generally regarded as providing excellent content, with the PBS in the US being the #1 most trusted government service. I also think the author fails to take into account that public and private news services often focus on different kinds of content; private stations tend to veer away from content with a poor return on investment, like long and dry commentaries, or local news, that are nonetheless useful in their own right, and instead focus on heavily sensationalized or shallow content, which yields far more in terms of expense to income. If the goal is to provide better news with more variety, cutting the only public service will do exactly the opposite; it will eliminate the ABC's unique ability to focus on news that isn't very profitable but still has value, and turn it into just another news station like the rest.
Yep. One of the principles coded into the ABC's charter is that they are required to be impartial - unlike private news providers. Of course, this often means pointing out flaws in a current government's policy, resulting the government of the day complaining that the ABC is biassed. Funny thing, though: its bias seems to change, depending on which party holds government. When the Labor Party is in office, the ABC has a right-wing bias; when the Liberal/National Coalition is in office, the ABC has a left-wing bias. The reality is that the ABC has no bias, but each successive government paints it that way because they don't like being criticised.
This isn't as much an economic issue as it is a political one. The Liberal Party was founded on the principle of free-market ("liberal") economics. It's ideologically predisposed to be against any form of government ownership of services or assets. In this context, any money spent on the ABC is wasted money, because news, information, and entertainment are supposedly services that should be provided by private entities, not a government-owned entity.
That said, the government has been cutting the ABC's budget over the past few years, and it's starting to bite. They've been shedding jobs, and economising as much as they can.
Ironically, this comes at a time when ABC is expanding its platforms to reach more people, and to adapt to changing technologies. It was one of the first television stations to provide online streaming of its content, for example. It's also broadcasting multiple digital television channels, including a 24-hour news channel. Spreading itself out across more platforms in this way has naturally made it more expensive to run, but these services aren't really luxuries in this day and age: they're where the people are. And, it's not like the ABC hasn't expanded before: it was originally set up as a radio broadcaster back in the 1920s, adding television 30 years later. It's just moving with the times.
Same here. The ABC is the most trusted news service in Australia, and for good reason.
Not Australian so I don't really have a dingo in this race but that piece did little to convince me. Their point that amateurs can make TV quality media is ridiculous. What are they even talking about? Youtube? What Youtuber out there is making TV quality shows without the backing of a studio/youtube? If it is the case, that broadcast TV and radio are dead then why sell it off at all? Why offload it onto an investor or shareholders if the very foundation is flawed? That sounds like you are setting people up to lose money. Why not just shut it down? Why not argue for it to turn into a digital service (like BBC 3)? Why target the radio service as well? This sounds to me like the issue is more a philosophical opposition to publicly financed institutions than it does an actual concern about any issues the ABC may have with modernization. Basically if this were an American issue, I would just dismiss this as a typical republican bullshit attack on anything that serves a purpose other than greed.