ABC boss Mark Scott: TV networks have dumbed down prime time
The drive for profits has led Australia’s broadcasters to dumb down prime time current affairs coverage and abandon international news coverage, the boss of the ABC has claimed.
In a London speech, ABC managing director Mark Scott said:
“Back when Kerry Packer ran Channel 9 in Australia, he built a strong news division, often staffed by journalists trained at the ABC. He invested in programs that took time to build large audiences, and ones that attracted influential audiences. Television was in his DNA, and as a proprietor, he could do as he liked – and as his employees testify – he often did. He was after big profits but also reputation and influence, power.
“The private equity owners’ motives are simpler and more pure. They care only about the profits –perfectly rational in terms of their investment strategy and their shareholder interests. But this has meant the abandoning of marquee programs, the dumbing down of prime time current affairs content and the virtual abandonment of international bureaux.
“What is happening in commercial television news now is a rerun of what happened in commercial radio news well over a decade ago: the stage has been left to the ABC.”
During the same speech, Scott also tackled the question of The ABC’s funding, ruling out any push for a licence fee system similar to that of the UK. But he did answer Foxtel’s lobbying for the Government’s public service funding to be opened up to other organisations.
He said: “The pay television sector in Australia… has no objection to the idea of public funding for a public good. What they’d like, in fact, is a chance to compete for those public funds. And the ABC has no difficulty with the idea of contestability, since the contests we are prepared to enter are those where we believe the market will not be able to provide. We believe in some areas: like commercial free children’s programming and like international broadcasting as an arm of the Government’s soft diplomacy – that the public broadcaster, operating without a profit motive, and building on a record of integrity developed for generations, is the only organisation that can deliver.”
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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I tend to agree and probably one of the best examples is 60 minutes. It used to be a hard hitting journalistic and real story driven program but is now barely a rung above ACA. The presenters are woeful and the stories (and I use the term loosely) are mostly pointless and anytime they have a celebrity on it’s not because they have anything interesting to say but it’s to promote their latest release be it music or film. Out of the hour you may get one good story. Simply hitting the on button I feel my IQ drop by 50 points and I’m not intelligent enough to lose that many and still survive.
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Did Mark Scott only just discover this? Has this man been hiding under a rock?
Mark I’m sorry to be the one to break it to you but prime time TV has been dumb for a very long time.
News coverage on the commercial networks is just a rehash of the Daily Telegraph, Courier Mail, Herald Sun and journalism disappeared from our TV screens somewhere before the turn of the 21st Century.
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The commercial channels should be made to display disclaimers or icons signifying whether their news content has commerical value to their network. Print is required do this today for Advertorials so why is TV different?
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Life is very different from 10, 20 or 30 years ago. We are doing more, we are learning more, and thanks to the Internet we are meeting more people socially. Technology at work allows us to be more productive, which means we are expected to have more knowledge more skills and we must achieve more in our working day. We are also travelling more. This is all leading to information overload…
When I get home I want to give my mind a break, watch something entertaining, not something which is boring.
Why rely on the Television for your education, if you wish to educate yourself, do your research on the Internet, television is for entertainment.
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