Saturday, September 10, 2011

ABC and its News, News and News Policy

Are you concerned with the direction ABC is taking by dropping sport, arts and pretty much anything not news or current affairs? Well, speak to your State and Federal members of parliament to have them take this up for you.

Bowls Australia has an online petition available at http://www.bowlsaustralia.com.au/index.php?id=30&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=4602&tx_ttnews[backPid]=1&cHash=4abf12dc0e

4 comments:

stryqx said...

Pay TV is sucking the life out of free-to-air viewing of sport, so it's to be expected that ABC's coverage will take a nosedive. Maybe they should be encouraged (mandated?) to cover the lower profile sports.
The arts coverage is pretty reasonable if you look at what's on offer across all their channels, but it's not as strong as it was say 15 years ago (can't remember the last time I saw an opera on the ABC for example).
Locally created dramas seem to be doing OK, but it's annoying when the good ones get bought by the commercial stations, only to be killed off once the ratings drop. &$^# commercial TV :-(
The recent Mark Scott address to the NPC pretty much outlined their direction and rationale over the coming years, for which News and current events does have some primacy. Besides, someone's got to counter the cr*p currently coming out of the Murdoch stable :-)
If you don't want news, then turn off ABC News 24 and stop listening to ABC News Radio :-)

Hilton Travis said...

Chris, there's more to it than what you're seeing. ABC TV seems to be dropping not only Bowls, but there's *serious* concern about them dropping all local sport (SANFL, QRL, etc) as well as maybe WNBL and W League - as well as Shute Shield when that contract is up for renewal.

In addition to this, there's a lot of other (general) programs such as Spicks & Specks, New Inventors, Collectors and so on that have been axed.

Art Nation has also been axed. (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/abc-axes-arts-division/story-e6frg996-1226106700825)

Basically, Mark Scott seems to be taking to ABC TV programming with an axe that will only result in a News and Current Affairs broadcaster who will buy everything else in.

What happened to the idea of a "National Broadcaster"? ABC Qld has been built without a functional TV studio. If we lose QRL up here (contract is up in 2 weeks) then why would they even leave an OB van up here? That will leave us without the ability to broadcast anything other than News and Landline.

ABC is being dismantled from the inside by management who seem to be single-mindedly interested in news and nothing else. ABC News is not as good as it used to be - the production quality of the program and especially of the journalism resulting in the news spots has been degrading for some time now.

I'm hearing from more and more people who are turning to SBS News from ABC News as they find it a much better option.

For a National Broadcaster to be dismantling SA, Qld and WA branches and seemingly moving everything back to Sydney, well, what's National about that?

stryqx said...

It's been a long, long time since any local sport here in Tas has been broadcast, with the last two non-news shows being Collectors and Gardening Australia that were locally produced.

SBS News has been the paragon of an early evening news program for a long time, unless you're really interested in local gossip/entertainment/scandal.

Centralised production was always on the cards. Jonathon Holmes et al have been banging on about this on MediaWatch forever. Not just ABC, but the commercial channels and dead-tree media formats too.

Hilton Travis said...

It may be on the cards, but it doesn't make it right - especially for the ABC.

Do you remember when the ABC is where young people went to get trained up so that they could then go out and create a life in the industry that the ABC trained them in? Well, those days are *LONG* gone - and that's not right, either.

What use is a National Broadcaster when it tears itself down from the inside and leaves a mere shell of its former glory? Nothing - and this doesn't mean we should stand by and see an organization like the ABC be torn apart and left to rot.