‘They both can learn a lot from each other’: Marc Fennell tells us the differences between working at ABC and SBS
To the average observer, Marc Fennell will look like the busiest man in Australian media over the next few months.
That’s in part because he has just launched This Is Not A Game, a new Audible Originals podcast series that slowly unspools the tale of the internet’s first ever conspiracy theory, the legend of Ong’s Hat.
As listeners of Fennell’s prior podcasts can attest to, he goes deep; here, diving into the hippie origins of the internet, uncovering web subcultures, and offering up both a cautionary tale and a reluctant patient zero for a lot of the internet’s ills.
So Fennell will be everywhere with that. There’s also a feature documentary about football, which Fennell helped to produce, set to air on the SBS in the coming weeks, then the second season of Stuff The British Stole, his history mystery for the ABC, coming in June. For this season, Fennell shoots in 11 countries, plus handles most of the directing himself.
He also hosts Australian Mastermind each night on SBS, and covers the media industry each week on the ABC Radio National program Download This Show on the ABC.
Fennell will talk more about the new podcast, his development deal with Amazon MGM, and how on earth he juggles all these projects in a separate feature, published tomorrow.
But it struck me that he is in a uniquely suited position, working across both the SBS and ABC, to offer up his thoughts on the differences between the two.
Not surprisingly, I wasn’t the first to ask him this — although he says it’s “mostly people inside those organisations” that are curious about the differences.
“I’ve always said that I think they both can learn a lot from each other,” he begins. “Like, I like working for both of them, but there definitely are differences.
“I think SBS is really agile, like, when it wants to make a decision fast, when it wants to back something fast, they just do it – and it happens.
“But the ABC has scale and cultural impact in a way that everyone else kind of struggles to achieve. So if you want to make a big cultural splash, the ABC is fantastic for it.
“With SBS, you can do it,” he continues, “you just have to work harder. You have to go out and get the audience harder. Whereas, the ABC has a pretty rusted-on audience that you can build on, and we certainly do with ‘Brits’ [Stuff The British Stole].
“But, the the agility of SBS is really remarkable. We have a team of six people that we make our films and series with. And it’s, you know, obviously lower resources than other things. But we move fast, and there’s a lot of creativity and fluidity within those teams.
“So I actually think there’s there’s definitely lessons at both of them. But I do think they’re very distinct organisations. They wouldn’t overlap well, I don’t think – but there is still a lot of lessons that can be borrowed from each other.”
It’s interesting to hear Fennell say they wouldn’t overlap well. From the outside, they seem similar.
“From the inside they’re very different,” he confirms. “Culturally, they’re very different, the way they’re structured and funded, very different.
“It’s obviously well above my pay grade, whatever happened there,” he says, most likely referring to recent managerial shuffling at the ABC.
“But I would say, they’re just very different places to work – both wonderful, but very different.”
Read the full feature interview with Marc Fennell in tomorrow’s newsletter, and listen to This Is Not A Game here.
Keep up to date with Mumbrella Daily
Got a tip?
Nathan Jolly is the Deputy Editor of Mumbrella. He joined the team in July, 2023.
Linkedin
Have your say