In your Manichean straightjacket you completely misunderstand half the world. I have made it clear that I do not agree with Sheehan.

http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/08/27/sheehan-hacks-into-sbs/#comment-396869

Hence the government has only considered those moves that protect the current competitors, and not moves that would open Australian TV up to new markets, and make it more competitive: there has been no real easing of the restrictions on foreign content, or foreign ownership, the introduction of digital television keeps getting pushed back… etc, etc.

The undue influence of Australian commercial networks on government is widely deplored: but the net result of the ‘numbers argument’ seems to be that it allows commercial networks to further cement their power and influence!

If tv dies as a medium, people need to think strategically about how to fill the void for funding and distribution of what we might call very broadly “public interest vidcast”.

I’m very sympathetic to the save our SBS/ABC sentiments, but things are really morphing, and putting your faith for the future in the revival of institutions is going to lead to a lot of disappointed hopes, I suspect.

The majors are terrified in Australia of splitting their already small audience into ball-crushingly small splinters, pushing revenues further down than they are already (and on a numbers basis, Australia’s tv ad revenues are significantly overpriced compared to other countries. I have no idea about radio).

And you can kiss all but the cheapest Australian made productions goodbye at the same time. The only ones that will get a guernsey will be the on govt. funded networks, or dirt cheap shit: 99% game shows and reality television, plus the two soaps that actually make money overseas. That’ll be it.

If you think the networks will be flooded with quality television cf. HBO, etc. in the states, you’d probably be wrong too. For the pathetic audience shares those shows garner, they’ll be way too expensive for the networks to consider. The only reasons they can buy the Sopranos, or Survivor or whatever and then show it at 3am is because they get package deals. No audience, no package deals, so you can kiss that goodbye too.

I’m no fan of communications industry regulation, given how very much of it is geared at cementing the power structures, rather than encouraging competition, but a free-for-all approach isn’t necessarily the best in this case.

I mentioned above the work that David Stratton did in presenting the riches of the world’s film heritage for over twenty years. The program was generally called Cinema Classics and I estimate that David screened more than a thousand films in that time. It was a program replete with everything from curiosities like the Mexican Bunuels (just now re-screened at BIFF) to virtually every film made by Akira Kurosawa. If you made a copy of each you would have a library of unsurpassed breadth and quality. Of course we all forgot the films were on and forgot to set the recorder and went out drinking or whatever. But you have the right to expect that SBS would have retained the unique subtitles that it created for each of these works. (Often those subtitles were the first ever to be done of some films. I’m told there are copies of these films circulating, illegally, in quality US video rental stores. Piracy is a crime but cinephilia trucks no such restrictions.) But has SBS preserved this unique material or have its managers, amongst all the other mayhem they’ve committed, let this resource be lost or destroyed? It’s a question that needs an answer by somebody competent to examine the channel’s activities in recent years.

It depends what you’d consider proof, I guess, but how about look at the approach governments/communities take to TV around the world and how the liberal approach compares to the nationalist/protectionist approach?

It’s true, for instance, that there are national broadcasters in Britain, Canada, and even the US (of sorts), but they do so in the context of a large commercial television market.

Not proof, perhaps – but strong evidence that the liberal, non-protectionist approach to the TV industry is preferable and more resilient than other models.

Paul Sheehan, I don’t want to make media owners richer by subscribing to their pay TV stations. I want to continue taking my news from the public broadcasters and I insist on my right to quality news from this source. Even if Australia lost both public broadcasters, I would still never subscribe to pay TV, and I’m not alone. I’d then search for my news sources online, but I’d make sure to avoid sources owned by the same small pool of businessmen (who aren’t newsmen, and never will be, including James ‘name your bets’ Packer).

Long live SBS – and come back Mary!

I don’t see how you can prove that.