State Liberals propose privatising ABC, SBS.      

Date
    May 22, 2013


Tony Abbott is facing internal pressure from Victorian Liberals to privatise the ABC and SBS if he wins the September 14 election amid claims both organisations are struggling to comply with their charters.    

State Liberals have launched a push ahead of the election to sell the public broadcasters, arguing the funds raised should be used to pay off government debt.

The Victorian Liberal Party's state conference this weekend will vote on a motion urging the federal Coalition to make a full-scale ''operational review'' of the ABC and SBS to ''look at the feasibility of partial or full privatisation of both''.      


The motion says the original arguments for public ownership and operation of the ABC and SBS are ''no longer valid in 2013'', arguing both broadcasters ''aggressively compete'' with private media outlets in a ''high-velocity public information environment''.


''Public ownership of like corporations is not compatible with Coalition policies,'' the motion says. ''In a complex communication market where media outlets are required to set the agenda, ABC/SBS are finding it increasingly difficult to comply with their respective charters, thereby alienating constituents.''

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's spokesman said it was a healthy debate, although it was ''not Coalition policy'' to examine the privatisation of the ABC.

But many Liberals are adamant about the need for a review amid claims of left-leaning bias.    

Institute of Public Affairs executive director John Roskam said it was becoming ''more apparent by the day'' that concerns about public ownership and bias would need to be addressed if the Coalition won the September 14 election.

''This issue holding back the Coalition from properly assessing the future of the ABC is a perception of strong support for the ABC in rural and regional areas,'' Mr Roskam said. ''This is something the Coalition is going to have to address. Talk to Coalition MPs as the election comes closer and there is an even stronger view … that the ABC is barracking for one side.''

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said the motion was a ''clear warning'' of the policies to expect if the Coalition wins the next election. He said federal opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull ''should immediately rule out this extreme position and recommit the Coalition to keeping the national broadcasters in public hands''.      

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/state-liberals-propose-privatising-abc-sbs-20130521-2jz5d.html#ixzz2TxrXZmWE

Once upon a time you could rely upon a few thing s when you listened in on ABC.

1. English was spoken with distinction and clarity with an intonation and emphasis that was without exception an Australian accent - it set a benchmark for how words in the English language were pronounced and without argument you could rely upon the announcers to display a capacity to use and understand the language like a carpenter knows which end of the hammer to use in hammering in nails. Worse, the inflection and tonality of the announcers are clearly displaying an underlying preconceived bias while presenting news reports which ultimately affect the perception (on an unconscious level) of the listener/viewer. So much for the idea that the ABC is meant to be unbiased. This has largely served the needs, desires and interests of progressive liberal groups that make up a very small part of our population. Giving these tiny minority groups the ability to wield significant power over the content of what is consumed by the general public, without any need to justify the necessity of the promulgation of biased views into the public arena - either commercial support or large public need - skews the direction for public policy debate and formulation to the detriment of more weighty matters of national importance.

2. The independence of the ABC was compromised over 30 years ago when it became clear to political parties of both persuasions that by having the ability to undermine source of information and independence of the board members on the ABC meant having a leg-up in any public policy debate. Tony Jones and Q&A is a classic example of how to skew public debate by stacking the deck with idiot representatives on one side of a debate against a strong public speaking team for the opposing argument on the other. Couple that with a loaded audience and you have a recipe for an absolute schmozzle.

3. There is FAR, FAR , FAR , FAR , too much time (and as a direct consequence money) on those inane self-promotion 'adverts' between programs. If the idiots that spent their time and efforts on making the video-doodles spent more time on ensuring the annoying and at times interfering subtitling, on the news reporting on 24, was arranged on-screen in a more aesthetically pleasing way, rather than the 'CNN' style that is currently being espoused, the quality of their broadcasting - just on production values alone - would go up another 3 notches in quality from where it lay now. I am left gasping when I try to understand why anyone would need for subtitles to be splayed - over the top of the video using somestimes as much as a third of the available screen space to achieved the result - over the current news story containing an 'excerpt',as often as not incorrect in content and meaning from the original and therefore misleading the public, if someone is watching the 24 news in a public space where there is no audio available............................. 

4. I hate non regional ABC news and content. I hate that some sports editor in Melbourne who likes shirt-pullers (AFL) or soccer skews over my sport of choice. That makes a point of denigrating the people and player involved in the sport I love as those beneath contempt. I don't like it when ABC reports on soccer matches that occur in England and Europe and repeatedly fails to report on the Rugby League games in England where there is a very large contingent of Oz expats who play as superstars in that League - and yet we hear nothing about it, while we are mercilessly pounded with info about gridiron, the resigning coach of a English soccer team and surfing, before we get any info about our great Rugby League players who earn millions in players fees and are superstars over there.

5.  I don't like the ABC pretending to deliver issues of National interest that only ever emanate from a border south of the Tweed River when there are issues here and in WA that are of more significance than any editor in a news room could ever really understand. I don't like the fact that the 7.30 report is beholden to an editor that seems to have done an apprenticeship in journalism at the Womens Weekly and believes that content will translate well to the ABC viewer rather than understand issues such as the changes in the QLD National Parks and reform and late night passage of legislation governing the clearing of land is of any less a matter of importance than the current NSW inquiry into the shenanigans of the Obieds and th ALP in NSW..................

It is WAYYYYYYY past bedtime for ABC. IF it wants to pretend that it is a commercial enterprise and compete with commercial broadcast operations - and as a consequence lower it's standards of integrity and unbias reporting - then it should be subject to the same pressures as commercial stations. That or the board of ABC hits the reset button and returns to the simple promise of REPORTING the news, rather than trying to persuade the audience of a viewpoint by representing vocal minority sections of the community to the detriment of the rest of society. I would prefer a more local ABC news and current affairs with lower production values than the slick, hi-tech void that now fills my screen.

I don't percieve that is a problem with SBS as it caters to a very narrow needs based section of the community. Having put that forward it is also worth noting, sofar as I'm concerned, SBS does a much better job of EVERYTHING it presents than the ABC.

Hope they go ahead with it. ABC is a waste of money that could be better used towards something more worthwhile, like campaigning to get me back in with the NRL

Phallic Baldwin wrote on May 22^nd, 2013 at 12:41pm:


Yep, I think I'd go along with that....

I would hate to see either privatised, but as I warned the other day, unless they concentrate on ensuring political bias in the news/current affairs depts it will become a risk.
Both broadcasters are, imo, the only ones of quality we have, although the ABC has had a tendency to chase audiences towards a lower common denominator in recent years.
I have no objection to SBS broadcasting in umpteen languages - that is its charter. It's really only radio anyway . . .don't listen.

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They should allow the ABC to be more sustainable by allowing advertising though.

I prefer Foxtel anyway......