Who’s on the outside now?

Glen Frost writes: Re. “Latham the outsider” (yesterday). Why has Sky News has chosen 10am on a Sunday to broadcast Outsiders?In the last century, the broadcast industry was about delivering (transmitting) the right content at the right time and so broadcast TV timeslots were important. When terrestrial TV channels were scarce, and only available via one box, at a set time, it made sense for competing broadcasters to compete head to head in the same timeslot. That’s changed now; video has replaced TV, and we consume video on many devices when we want to, not when the TV companies deem we should. Scheduling Outsiders at exactly the same time as Insiders seems like last century’s mentality. Is it perhaps to send a message that the ABC is replaceable? A key part of right wing politics is to (endlessly) state that the role of the public sector is to only provide services where the private sector can’t or won’t – therefore, scheduling at the same time as Insiders means Bolt et al can claim that the private sector is providing political insight and the ABC is just wasting taxpayer dollars. Plus I have a feeling that the other great value from Outsiders to News Corp is generating outrage, which can then be reported on by The Australian the next day, and the day after etc; it’s a right wing transmedia content creation strategy. Very clever.