Expansion is appropriate and appreciated: ABC
In part four of our series on the future of Australian television, we had a conversation with the managing director of ABC TV, Kim Dalton.
The public broadcaster has been criticised – particularly by the pay-TV sector – for its digital expansion, but according to Dalton, the Australian public supports the ABC’s plans, which are only limited by its budget.
Encore: What are ABC TV’s strategies going forward into the new digital environment?
What is it about successive Australian goverments (of all political persuations) need to control (strangle) public media? (film included) via people such as Kim Dalton? His use of public funds for empire building should be condemned & curtailed asap – same way it has been in the UK (BBC). His much vaunted pioneering achievements in film helped reinforce the foundation of the non competitive mess we’re in today – lasting legacy of mediocrity & bureaucratic incompetence.
ABC2 does carry news. Most notably for three hours every weekday morning (ABC News Breakfast), but also in the form of 45 minutes of comedic US news on weekday evenings, plus additional short weather bulletins.
Regarding Ford Zephr’s comments, would he/she prefer that a larger slice of our media be controlled by the British government (through BBC Worldwide and it’s extensive Australian TV and publishing operations), the Singapore government (who control Optus), or the Chinese government (who control an FM station in Perth)?
If the ABC does not expand, it will not be holding it’s ground – it will loose market share. It will never have the control of the market it had in the 90’s and 2000’s again, no matter how many new TV channels and other services it offers.
I don’t really appreciate any local content that is unintelligible and merely a token effort to guarantee a percentile ratio of australian versus exported programming. Seriously, digital multichannels should be embraced and allowed to evolve freely without this creeping neurosis for local content taking over and ruining the development of digital TV.
It will naturally become evident in coming years, how pushing back the global march of international cross platform media content is merely a futile attempt to secure so called australian dramas and locally based programming. All things fall into place naturally as technology sees fit and according to individual tastes. Eventually trying to secure anything as local vs foreign, will be like trying to make internet users surf more local content when clearly the internet is no mans land and not there to be dictated by one form or another.