The pay television sector has made a comprehensive and pointed challenge to the ABC and SBS and their claims on the public purse.
In one of more than 2400 submissions to the Federal Government’s review of public broadcasting released last Friday, the Australian Subscription Television and Radio Association protests that it supports public broadcasting — while taking a hit at almost every aspect of the ABC’s vision for the future.
ASTRA argues that the ABC and SBS should receive government money for new channels only in cases where there is a clear market failure and contends there is no evidence of market failure in news reporting, children’s content, education or overseas content. After all, there is Skynews, A-Pac and a big handful of pay television channels devoted to children’s content.
Even if there is a market failure, ASTRA says, then the money to address it should not go straight to the ABC and SBS. The required services should be put out to tender.
Likewise spectrum. If that is available, it too should be put out to competitive auction, not given to the public broadcasters.
ASTRA goes on to argue that the ABC should not be allowed to raise money by selling its content, whether in DVD format or online, in competition to pay television.
Finally, it criticises the ABC and SBS for being “increasingly aggressive” in demanding “hold back” clauses in production contracts to block programming being made available to subscription television.
This is a nice reverse on the arguments one hears within the ABC from those opposed to outsourcing. It is usually claimed that outsourcing leads to taxpayer’s money being used to fund content that will be on-sold to pay television once the ABC’s season is over. ASTRA has a very different take. It suggests the ABC and SBS should make content available to them more quickly, as part of the public broadcasters’ commitment to distribute material as widely as possible.
The ASTRA submission directly challenges almost every leg of the ABC’s funding pitch and claims to relevance. ABC Managing Director Mark Scott has used words like “market failure” at every opportunity to press his claim for government money for children’s content, investigative journalism and more Australian content.
It is increasingly clear that in the battle for continued relevance in broadcasting, the main antagonists are pay television and the public broadcasters. Both embrace multichanneling, which the commercial free to air networks cannot do.
Both aspire to provide high quality specialised content to niche audiences.
This is the context for the recent stoush over Foxtel’s public affairs channel A-pac, which I have reported on before.
What continued claim does the ABC and SBS have on the public purse? The answers are, on a reading of the submissions: the ability to reach all Australians; the ability to innovate and take risks free from commercial pressure; and a commitment to Australian content.
It is patently untrue for Foxtel to argue that there is no evidence of market failure in areas such as news and children’s content.
SkyNews is terribly biased, whereas the ABC news is as unbiased as it is possible to be. And there may be several children’s channels on Foxtel…but al they show is american garbage, with no educational value. Whereas the ABC makes great educational childrens programming, as well as broadcasting a lot of UK content, which is also heavily educationally oriented.
News Ltd constantly moan about how the ABC is doing things they shouldn’t – they said a few years ago that they shouldn’t make Spicks and Specks, cos the commercial world could make it… but when Channel 7 did make a rip off, it was hopeless!
these ‘facts’ from Foxtel, News Ltd et al. must be seen for what they are – cheap shots taken at a key rival. It’s funny how they make them so frequently… you don’t see the ABC constantly attacking them!
I have pay TV I have it for one reason I like to watch Rugby League,living in WA on TV RL is treated as a leper,if Pay lose or dump RL they will lose me,and I think that goes for an awful lot of people in NSW and QLD and I daresay the other states as well.
Leave the ABC and SBS alone,Williams spends a lot of time making stupid statments,he wants to be careful someone one day might allow competition to rule then we shall see how much Mr Williams has to say,cause like most things we pay to much for Pay TV broadband phones ect,friends of mine in the UK and US are amazed at what we pay for a very 2nd rate service.
In another submission to the ABC SBS review Terry Flew, Stuart Cunningham, Axel Bruns and Jason Wilson have gone beyond the market failure justification for public service broadcasting to argue that the ABC and SBS have a key role to play in social innovation. They argue:
“The challenge for the ABC and SBS is how to be best positioned as a 21st century public service media to act as conduits for user-led social innovation while maintaining the core features of their institutional design and Chart remit to deliver social and cultural value through provision of unique and compelling media content that informs, entertains and engages all Australians”.