Nation-building to ‘national shame’: the ABC’s complex role as sports broadcaster
The ABC has announced it will not provide live radio coverage of the Olympics for the first time in 67 years for budgetary reasons, and because Australians now have the “increased ability to access Olympics coverage in other ways”.
The decision sparked a furious response from some, such as veteran sports broadcaster Quentin Hull, who deemed it a “national shame”.
But was the decision a snub to sports fans in favour of other types of broadcasting, or just a matter of hard-nosed accounting?
Michael and Fiona write “The ABC’s financial situation is in dire straits” and include a link to circumstances since 2015, but the real reason for the ABC’s financial problems goes back to 2010 when Mark Scott, having failed to get additional (ALP) government funding to start his so-called 24-hour news channel, went ahead with it anyway, raiding the budgets of all the other ABC departments to fund its establishment and ongoing running costs. As a result, other than news which continues in its bloated fashion, every other area of the ABC, drama, comedy, children’s and yes sport, have had to take a multi-million dollar haircut. In any case, if it really wants to, the ABC can still broadcast the Games live using “off-tube” commentary in Sydney for very little cost. Many of the world’s broadcasters do it this way, even the giant US NBC network now has more people in their US-based Olympic HQ than at the host city. Nobody would know (or care) – with the exception of the commentators and producers (the ones stirring up the attempt at social media “outrage”) who miss out on a taxpayer-funded international trip.
Roy and HG used to do off-TV live broadcasts of sport on ABC radio…
Get off your soap boxes everyone. Clearly it doesn’t stack up financially. I don’t believe that the ABC is “obliged” to pay overs using my money for any property where its arts, sports, or whatever. Take your metaphorical baseball bats to your local MP, not a niche trade media site.
They don’t have the funding.
Seems pretty clear-cut to me.
People who are upset by this should petition the Government.