Every day hundreds, if not thousands, of consumers are wronged and ripped off in Australia. So it is of real concern that Australia’s only national consumer affairs show, The Checkout, has been shelved. The Checkout was a beautiful fit for our national broadcaster — which is independent of commercial interests — and just the ticket at a time of soaring consumer concerns.
While the ABC maintains The Checkout is only “on hiatus”, reactions to the decision indicate Australians are very wary of any reduction to public interest reporting. Audiences have vented their spleen on social media, asking “who will keep the bastards honest?”
The independent Australian Competition and Consumer Commission also said the show has done an incredible job since 2013 of informing Australians about consumer rights and holding businesses to account.
The number of contacts the ACCC has received from consumers has more than doubled during the past five years — from 185,640 in 2012-13 to 405,382 in 2016-17. The ACCC received 155,035 scam reports in 2016 — an increase of 47% compared with 2015. Some $83.6 million has been reported lost in these scams.
Australians trust the ABC and they trusted The Checkout to inform them of unscrupulous rip-off merchants.
The Turnbull government’s sustained attack on the ABC, inclusive of $83.7 million budget cuts this year alone, spells uncertainty for all manner of ABC programming. While the ABC balances a range of factors in deciding its production slate, including its budget envelope, at the end of the day it is Australian citizens and consumers who pay for Liberal cuts to the ABC.
It had to go, it was annoying a large portion of the LNP funding base.
The fact it is so needed is precisely the reason it was axed. Guthrie, on orders from the Coalition, had to do something to please the Coalition’s donors.
One does have to wonder about these decisions. Much of what the ABC produces is more or less worthy rubbish, but The Checkout is a great program, not only informative, but consistently inventive and funny. What possible logic can have led to its being suspended?
Make no mistake, Media Watch will be next on the chopping block. Murdoch & his minions will only tolerate being made to look foolish for so long.
Labor should commit to explicitly funding the checkout team and its various consumer news stories and features. Probably one of the most successful shows in making business and govt lift it’s game.
They should fund it to be shown on a commercial station which the financially gullible are more likely to view. On the ABC they’re just preaching to the converted.
A commercial channel would never air a show like the Checkout because it is criticising the very companies that buy advertising on commercial TV. Julian Morrow made this exact point, the only viable home for such a show is on an ad-free public broadcaster.