Why the Chasergate furore is about the future of the ABC
So let’s recap.
Youve got presenters celebrated for pushing boundaries.
They do precisely that with something in incredible bad taste. But the show’s prerecorded, so it gets referred upwards to the woman in charge.
For some inexplicable reason she allows it to go to air.
The media gets into it. The public is outraged – even to the extent that credible questions are asked about the standing and funding of the public service broadcaster. The level of genuine public anger is pretty much unprecedented.
The show is suspended and the woman who let it through faces a major career issue, so does the MD, a chap called Mark.
If you haven’t already worked it out, I’m not talking about last week’s scandal over The Chaser, but what went on in the UK late last year. The consequences were among the most serious ever faced by the BBC. They will have scared the hell out of ABC boss Mark Scott over the last few days.
To recap, Russell Brand (whose TV series Ponderland recently finished airing on Seven) had as a guest on his national BBC radio show Jonathan Ross (whose show is currently airing on Monday nights on Seven as it happens. Eerily enough, as I write this on Monday evening with Seven on in the background, Ross is interviewing Brand. But I digress…)
The pair were doing a prerecorded show, in which they were due to conduct a phone interview with the septagenarian actor Andrew Sachs – Manuel in Fawlty Towers. There was no answer, so they left a message – part of which was Ross blurting out: “He fucked your granddaughter.” Which was true. He had.
Prior to broadcast, the exchange was referred upwards to Lesley Douglas, the controller of BBC Radio2. She approved it without considering it properly.
After broadcast – and once the media got their teeth into it – the public became increasingly outraged at the treatment of an elderly national treasure. Eventually there were more than 38,000 Sachsgate complaints. It was a major media issue for weeks.
The BBC’s managing director issued a public apology and announced a suspension of Brand from his show and Ross from his TV and radio engagements for the BBC. Brand immediately resigned, but it wasn’t enough to save Douglas who resigned the next day.
Even now, the consequences are still continuing for the BBC. Ross only recently came back on air – and he is now banned from doing live radio for the network, despite being one of its highest paid performers – at least until his contract runs out. MPs have called for changes to the funding of the BBC. And the broadcasting regulator fined the BBC the equivalent of more than $300,000 dollars. Director general Mark Thompson’s own job was under threat.
So you can see why the ABC appears to be viewing Chasergate as something to take seriously.
And – based on the contents of tonight’s Media Watch – I can’t see that the ABC’s Amanda Duthie can credibly keep her job. Her email exchange with the programme makes it clear that she failed to refer the sketch upwards.
Just like Lesley Douglas, she is generally well thought of. But just like Lesley Douglas, unless there’s a dramatic development she may well have to go.
The ABC management will be praying that the furore dies down now . It’ll take a few days yet to see if that’s the case – most of the newspaper columnists and talkback stations have now had a bite. But the broadcaster will have to say something about its internal procedures and what went wrong.
And when the show returns to the air on June 24 the scrutiny will massive (Update: I’ve just noticed that’s also State of Origin game two, so the audience will be anything but massive – deliberate timing for the return I wonder?) . They’ll get away with far less than they did before – certainly no scenes like the one featuring the lynching of a black woman which they did in episode one. By going far too far, in the future they’ll be able to go far less far.
It’s a nightmare for the ABC – as well as the backlash of public sentiment and potential regulatory or even future funding sanctions, there is another challenge to be faced – that of loss of nerve.
If events follow the same pattern as the BBC, the organisation will spend the next few months in paralytic risk-averse mode. Don’t expect to see anything edgy anytime soon.
What to do with The Chaser is an even bigger problem though. Part of the case for ongoing public funding of the broadcaster is its ability to reach all Australians. Along with The Gruen Transfer and Spicks & Specks, The Chaser is one of the few shows to connect with a younger audience.
To quote the late Fergus Cashin, this one will run and run.
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’m all for small remotely detonated explosives, placed at the base of the neck.
Seriously though, ‘cheeky boundary-pushing smartarses’ are hardly a scarce, non-renewable source. I have a lot of love for the BBC model of short, finite runs for shows.
Give some other group of fellas (or ladies, that’d be a huge step) a go.
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I have to comment on this.
Comedy, like that of Brand, Ross and the Chaser team is one that is edgier than most and it pushes boundaries of taste. Its not for everyone. But, allowing more and more managment-editorial control means that producers have less and less say and we have lawyers and accountants deciding on whats funny.
That will never end well, the BBC paid Ross a large salary to stop him jumping ship because they know of his worth. He knows his days are numbered and is testing the water in other media, he is currently running a twitter bookgroup.
I am disappointed that its always part-time viewers or even in fact non-viewers who complain the most about shows like this.
I really do hope that this isnt the beginning of the end of a new age in australian comedy, and we will be dragged back into the “Hey Dad” dark days.
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Oh, I think edgy, boundary pushing stuff still burbles away within the cauldron of Aussie comedy – Good News Week, for all its flaws, strays into hilariously bad taste on a regular basis. Still, there’s a few areas they don’t go, and fair enough.
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Okay so someone made a decision which in hindsight should have been the reverse due to popular outcry. Shouldn’t we as a Nation take this in our stride acknowledging that that kind of humour / satire whatever is not what we want and move on? You can’t crucify the person who made a judgement call in this situation. Maybe it is time for us all to return to a more softer duller ABC that won’t offend anyone or make us ask the hard questions. At the very least this episode put a spotlight on an issue which most Australian’s found distasteful – well at least we know. Thanks Chaster and the ABC for keeping us on our toes is all I can say.
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What happened in the UK was indeed similar. An interesting – and perhaps these days all too predictable cause of sachsgate was arguably not the content itself. It was The Daily Mail paper (note I did not say ‘news’paper). Always hungry for scandal, they pushed this piece into an audience who would not naturally have come into contact with it – not choosing to listen to the program.
I, and the 400,000+ other weekly listeners to Russell Brand’s podcast, had come to depend on his great mix of hilarity, intelligence – and yet stupidity, for an hour of awesome comedy – laugh out loud, spit your drink, get ssssshhhed on public transport screamingly great laughs. He went too far with this sketch – agreed. But for me (smack bang in the middle of his demographic) it was more of a “oh – that was a bit out of order” moment, than a huge, international, career costing, taxpayer costing fiasco. As ever with a comedy issue, its about who finds what funny. The show and podcast listeners found it funny. Not a single complaint was made. The Daily Mail needed to increase its circulation figures, so jumped on the back of Ross and Brand – both big names, both guaranteed crowd gatherers. And that’s what the Mail needed. And of course the amusing part of all of this is that the people who chose not to listen because they presumably weren’t interested in Brand’s comedy, suddenly thought they should air their opinions on it. I for one was very excited to see Brand here on tour, and he was, as predicted, hilarious.
In both the ABC and BBC cases – that’s what the ‘off’ button is for. Move on – listen to something else, watch something else, learn something else.
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That’s a good point, Jen
It became a scandal driven by other media, no doubt at least partly self-interested by the damage being done to their rival the BBC. I believe there were only two complaints to the BBC before the Mail on Sunday ran with the story a week later – and nearly 40,000 afterwards.
We may be seeing a similar case here – I’m sure many of those who were most angry did not see the sketch when it aired. But it doesn’t make the ABC’s situation any less perilous.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
One other point of similarity – In Russell Brand and The Chaser you had each organisation’s golden child. Both were used to getting their way, and their management were scared not to let them have it.
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One of the “outraged” was, of course, our own Kevin, who then admitted that he hadn’t even seen the sketch.
Oh dear ….
For my own part, I don’t (and have never) watch the show. Not my demographic, but I accept that the ABC can and will and SHOULD push the boundaries from time to time. Their problem is that they become captive to the success of their little offspring (as they did with Andrew Denton and so let him put some awful drivel to air).
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This sketch was not “edgy”, “black” “ironic”, “satirical”, it was juvenile, unoriginal and in less than poor taste.
If the executive responsible cannot follow her employer’s policies and report to her direct lines when appropriate she is obviously not ready for this role.
The Chaser cast further added fuel to the fire with their insincere apologies with usual smug smirks added. Perhaps if they were to face the people they hurt face to face instead of on their own terms from behind the safety of the media they might reconsider their responses to the parents and children, and other that they insulted.
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Just wondering if any of the Chaser team are parents? That might give them a different perspective. (A perspective perhaps less appealing to most of their audience).
I was with them most of the way through the sketch in question, and was assuming they were trying to say something about the over-the-top kind of charity which fuels some commercial TV shows. I think they could have made their point more effectively without the punchline. What’s more important – being funny or being ‘edgy’?
Speaking of edgy – a message to the ‘executive responsible’ – via the ABC PR team – do you still wander around the workplace wearing rubber gloves?
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The Chaser boys should spend the two weeks watching Jon Stewart’s Daily Show and The Colbert Report, and see how black satire should be done.
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What is laughable is the implication that
1. this went to air because it did not go high enough in the bureaucratic chain of command and
2. The boss it did not go to would have canned it.
As a working journalist, I have to deal with bureaucracies of spin all the time and now the ABC looks set to make its “public service” more torturous.
Here is the ABC of bureaucratic decision making.
A. Don’t make a decision.
B. If forced into a decision make it negative.
C. If it goes pear shaped, blame someone else.
I never saw the skit, so, unlike other commentators in low and high places, I haven’t the audacity to make a comment on it.
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