There’s been some discussion on the ABC’s decision to introduce a 24 hour news channel on a related thread, and it deserves consideration in its own right.
Mark Scott’s announcement was accompanied by the now ritualised shots across the bow from News Limited columnists. As Margaret Simons observes:
…it is another example of how one of the chief battles of the media decade will be between public broadcasters and commercial viewer-pays services.
Indeed. But it also raises the question of whether the ABC’s limited resources should be targeted towards jumping into the same space already occupied by Sky News. Mark Scott’s strategy for the ABC, when you substract some of the bells and whistles about ‘user generated content’, is increasingly looking like turning the ABC into a major competitor in a range of news and public affairs spaces.
The temptation in these debates is to default to a simplistic response, something along the lines of ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’. But profound shifts in the public broadcasting landscape require a more nuanced evaluation. As Simons herself notes, the question of the ABC Charter will be raised, not least by commercial vested interests.
However, as Jason Wilson argues at New Matilda:
…as news consumers and taxpayers, we’re entitled to pause for a moment and wonder whether it actually makes sense for us.
Go read the rest of Wilson’s piece.
His conclusion:
Indeed, if the ABC really wanted to honour its charter and address market failures, it would seek not to provide the kind of shallow continuous coverage that, intermittent, “event” stories aside, characterises 24-hour news services and freely available online alternatives.
Instead, they’d be going for that more elusive quality in the contemporary information landscape: depth. By renewing the investigative remit of 4 Corners in order that it might pursue a greater number of important, complex national stories, the ABC would be providing something that simply doesn’t exist elsewhere — and which Australian democracy urgently needs.
And if Kerry O’Brien had the support of an investigative team, he might be able to confront politicians with new information and curly questions, instead of leading all comers through the same, tired pas de deux. If additional resources were provided to local radio, collapsing local public spheres might be revivified. A continuous news service will not address these entrenched difficulties, which are problems for Australia’s democracy as much as they are for the ABC.
True thought leadership from Mr Scott might recognise that what’s lacking in Australia’s public sphere is not another source of basic news coverage, but a commitment to providing new information, context, synthesis, analysis, and tough questions. More information on the new channel will reveal the extent of his awareness of these problems.
Yes, I was quite startled to read this. As I remarked to Jason, 24-hour news channels are fundamentally indistinguishable from 24-hour shopping channels.
I’d even go as far to speculate that treating news as though it’s something to be sold by the tonne has been a key factor in the ruination of the media’s fourth estate function in the US.
No doubt it will end up like all the other 24/7 news channels where they simply repeat the same reports every 40 minutes or so.
Sad, but probably true…
I agree with Jason’s piece. What Australia doesn’t need is another 24-hour television news service with rolling headlines. Inevitably, this will turn into an operation where a skeletal production staff barely holds it together by doing rip-and-reads from the wires and filling gaps with agency features from Reuters and AP.
Mark Scott would do better spending the bulk of the money on beefing up the existing journalistic resources of the 7.30 Report and Four Corners. The rest could be used on funding some independent reporting on News Radio, which is so bare-boned it was reduced to running BBC reports on the Victorian bushfires.
Continuous television news is hard. All their money will be spend on expensive “live crosses” to breaking news events, which inevitably add little to the story and which really are nothing more than a way for the channel to brand itself by showing its “personalities” are part of the event.
The rest of the time it will be rolling 15-minute headlines, which will basically involve one droog of a producer picking up the AAP copy and re-writing it. The other even less lucky producer will spend all her time in the unending task of guest booking. This will involve dragooning the usual suspects into the studio to provide their predictable talking points on the news of the day.
This 24-hour news channel idea is just so 1995. The whole thing is calculated to show that the ABC is worth the 8 cents a day. But the fact is the money is being wasted and could spent much more effectively and efficiently elsewhere.
“But it also raises the question of whether the ABC’s limited resources should be targeted towards jumping into the same space already occupied by Sky News.”
Unless something has happened since last time I updated my set-top box, Sky News isn’t digital commercial free-to-air, so while there would be overlap, its not exactly the same space.
I for one am looking forward to 24/7 abc news, and am happy for it to broadcast many of the same reports repeatedly every hour, mixed in with other stories. I don’t think that is sad…unless you are planning on sitting in front of the news channel for hours at a time, which would be sad. It just means you can flick on the TV at any time and watch the news for an hour.
Jason Wilson is spot-on. As is Mr Denmore.
This is all about facile competition with the commercials based on the erroneous assumption that the ABC has some value to add to the whole outdated concept.
Beyond pathetic!
Agreed. No wonder Murdoch is outraged. With the current out of the ABC it will be just the ABC paraphrasing News Ltd 24/7. A complete waste of time.
I say the ABC sohuld be produciing less news and concentrate on higher quality.
good point tssk.
See First Dog on the Moon’s cartoon today at Crikey.com – says it all. Though I dont mind upsetting Prince Murdoch and friends. What would be better – an increase in funding to the likes of Radio Australia ..”Good evening, this is the ABC/BBC etc”. News ad nauseum is not what we want, its news and info that can make a difference, make sense of life. If the ABC 24/7 went down that path it would be worthwhile.
Quality before quantity.
Actually I – and I think many people – just want the convenience to be able to watch TV news at the particular point in time when i feel like getting a TV news update, rather than waiting for the specific times that a news program is on.
I don’t think foxtel is worth it, so i’m glad that somebody is thinking about 24/7 news for free-to-air.
Any educated person gets the bulk of the “news that can make a difference, make sense of life” from a wide variety of sites on the internet, not TV. Its ridiculous to think that the kind of ‘depth’ that Jason Wilson argues the ABC should do is not available. IT IS, on the internet, at many places, blogs like this for example. But I’m not sure people want that kind of depth on the TV. The boffins and enthusiasts and the thoughtful who want to really dig into issues can do that on the internet.
IMO TV is for breadth (“broadcast”? “mass-media”?), not depth. More superficial covering of the headlines and convenient times and with good camera work is what TV can deliver, to the many who want that from TV.
TV news is just to catch the latest. Its forte is to be light, and convenient, and to be dished out to those with little brain power to spare thinking intently about the news (perhaps after a long day at work and looking after family), but just want to be kept in the loop of anything major.
SCPitch, as good as this site is, it doesn’t do proper in-depth journalism. I’m not saying that to criticise anyone, it’s just how it is. Podcasting over the internet is a much better platform for the kind of news when I want it type service you are looking for. TV is best suited to the kind of in-depth coverage of shows like 4 Corners or PBS Frontline. Watching an hour of reasonable quality video over the internet just isn’t possible or preferable for alot of people.
At 5 am I turn on the ABC Asia channel in Manila. By 5.30 I’ve turned it off because they’ve started to repeat themselves. A few stories, covered without insight (lots of footage this morning of Prince William pressing the flesh). I can get the same thing in 3 minutes from Google Reader.
I can understand why such a channel has huge appeal to ABC staff. It gives them a forum to become even more ubiquitous in public affairs than they already are. It’s less clear why people think it’s a sound investment.
People who support this seem to have lost sight of the concept of opportunity cost. Investing resources into this project means the resources are not available for other purposes. Even if the 24/7 news channel has some minor benefits, is it really the best value for money from the resources? More valuable than revitalising 4 Corners and the 7.30 Report, for example?
The discussion of issues e.g. anything to do with climate change, would be significantly more in-depth on this blog than 4 corners, despite the fact that 4 corners has pictures and sound (some of which to waste on musical interludes that accompany (for example) pictures of steam coming out of coal-fired power station cooling towers for a climate change or energy story.) Maybe 4 corners could be improved, but the deeper you make it, the less accessible it is, which is no good for TV.
In any case this blog was just an example – you can definitely find greater depth on any issue you like (without resorting to video if you dont have a fast connection) on the internet than TV.
I would think (hope) that a 24/7 news channel would have regular re-runs of 730 report and 4 corners at various times, which might bring these programs to a wider audience.
Many who have posted here appear to have made the assumption that what is advanced as “news” by Murdoch outlets, Sky etc., is news, and not opinion tainted by spin, self interest and political bias.
May be it is, maybe it isn’t, but personally I don’t accept anything on these outlets, which I consider to be the propaganda arms of the conservatives, without third party verification.
An alternative, always available information and public affairs channel will go a long way towards keeping the bastards less dishonest.
But where do you think the ABC gets its ‘news’ from?
The discussions quite very in-depth at times but journalism isn’t in-depth discussion. Apart form the academic literature, much of the discussion on here is informed by someone else’s primary reporting, this is the job of the journalist. Accessibility shouldn’t be an issue, we have 3 commercial networks for accessible programming.
That’s the problem, adrian, isn’t it.
“we have 3 commercial networks for accessible programming.”
none of which do 24/7 for free-to-air
Hmm, I wouldn’t mind if it included some live streaming from parliament[s], including senate committees etc. I think Foxtel customers get state and federal parliament broadcasts and it seems odd to me that this is not something that should be broadcast free to air on public TV.
I’d also like to see more live, unedited feeds of press conferences, since the calibre of ABC journalism is seemingly not what it used to be, I think there would be a lot of merit in such coverage, so that those who are interested enough can make up their own minds, without the ‘reporting’ there would be less accusations of bias.
If this were to occur, I think some of the opinion writers, Crabb, Uhlman [sp?] etc, could come into their own. I think it’s obvious there is some bias with commentators on the ABC, and it’s never bothered me much, because I think it does actually balance out in the end, but I would like access to the unedited musings of our pollies too.
None of which do 4 corners either.
Adrian, Albrechtsen and Windschuttle will soon be but a remnant malignant odour lurking in hidden recesses of the offices of the ABC.
I would hope that fresh clean air would revitalise and sanitise it to the extent that they would seek and report the truth from where it is found, certainly not from the orifices of the Liberal Party and its cheer squads.
As it is the ABC News/Current Affairs programmes are boringly repetitive. For example, every, repeat every, morning ABC TV on 2 repeats at least one magazine feature on the 7. 30 Report the previous night. ABC 2′s morning breakfast itself, which only runs for 3 hours is boringly repetitive and nearly half an hour of that is excessively boring sport. I shudder to think how boringly repetitive their 24 hour chaneel will be. They don’t do their job properly now. Investigative reporting on Auntie is a thing of the dim, distant past, and will remain so. This will be a disaster. And a total waste of taxpayers’ money.
Again, it would be nice if the discussion was informed by some kind of cost/benefit analysis. What is the target audience of the new channel? Will these viewers get any objectively valuable public interest benefits from it that they lose out on now by having to wait until 7pm? How many regular beneficial users are we talking about – 50,000? 100,000? Is it really a good use of scarce resources to cater to the special needs of such a tiny group, given the enormous deficiencies in other ABC services?
Or is this mainly an ego trip by ABC staff who like the idea of being wallpaper in airports and dentists’ waiting rooms all over the land?
Unfortunately the “Hands off our ABC” motto is a good indicator of some attitudes that invariably creep into any discussion of the institution. What they boil down to is “Hey I like what they do so you just clear off and leave them alone”.
Television is an awfully cumbersome and extremely expensive way to do news. And for the user it is the least time efficient way of receiving it. You have to sit glued to a screen, as opposed to the great benefit of radio/webcasting where you can consume it on the move.
For news junkies like me, you can absord most events of note overnight by having a good RSS reader – like Google. It takes me 10 minutes to “read in” in the morning. I could not be bothered sitting in front on a TV watching a bunch of self-regarding blow-dried luvvies read wire copy and provide instant “analysis”.
Ken’s right. This is an expensive and anachronistic act of self-indulgence by Mark Scott and his army of wannabe television stars. Put another way, it is awfully lavish way of providing an alternative source of employment for those still stuck in the Nine newsroom.
I agree with SCPritch
“But it also raises the question of whether the ABC’s limited resources should be targeted towards jumping into the same space already occupied by Sky News.”
The ‘space’ is currently not being filled by free to air
I cant afford TV by cable or Satellite TV and would love to have the ABC fill this space on FTA & no adds ‘Bliss’
Ken @ 23, despite our differences on the quality drama bit of the ABC (which I’ll concede is thin on the ground these days, and I’ll also concede you have some of a point), I completely agree with you about the potential benefits of this.
It’s bloody expensive to run a whole ‘nother TV station, and that money could be far better spent on, eg, 4 Corners.
Feels more like that the ABC is continuing the grand tradition of being the antipodean outpost of the BBC, again. There are few good arguments for Pay TV, thought, and a 24/7 FTA news channel is another nail in its coffin. Denmore and Wilson are right to be concerned; it will have to be significantly original compared to BBC World News let alone Sky News.
It’s not just the board, it’s the whole culture of the reporting where in most cases you know that absolutely no independent research has been done by the journalist/interviewer/reporter, and it’s also the choice of topics and issues.
They cover the same stories in much the same way as the commercials, so what is the point.
As Paul says it will be just like ABC2 Breakfast but spread more thinly.
A 24 hour ABC News and Current Affairs channel is a major step forward in the democratisation of access to news and information in Australia. It gives the 70 per cent of Australian households that don;t have FOXTEL the sorts of services the other 30 per cent have come to take as a given. Moreover, because of this, it primarily benefits low-income Australians who can’t afford cable TV.
The ABC would have done this a decade ago but for the commercial free-to-air networks dragging the chain on multichannelling.
The complaints from Rupert’s minions at SKY give away the extent to which they know that the ABC is on a winner with this proposal.
“democratisation of access to news and information in Australia.”
Well, you’ve got a sense of humour, Terry.
And why not? At present only 30 per cent of Australians get access to 24 hour news services. I would have thought it is in the most admirable traditions of the nation-building role of the public sector to ensure that the other 70 per cent – who are on average lower income earners than FOXTEL subscribers – to be able to have TV news when they want it, not when schedulers dictate.
Surely the question is what exactly do they have access to.
News and information from a trusted provider, when they want it. Its not complicated. 24 hour news services have been around for 30 years now.
It was reported that Mark Scott wants to have this baby up and running before the next federal election. Why would that date be so important to him?
Maybe he is hoping to influence the election result with an extra platform, for his real masters, and then supervise the selloff arrangements for them.
Yes good Terry, now are you going to address my points or are you firmly in the “Gosh a 24/7 news channel would be really cool so let’s not bother with any cost/benefit nonsense” camp?
There are lots of things that it would be nice for the state to provide – a bus every 5 minutes instead of every hour where I live would be nice, as would a full teaching hospital near by and all kinds of other things. They’d be nice but they fail a cost benefit test, so they don’t get provided.
You might begin by explaining just what objective disadvantage it is to have to wait until 7pm to get news on the TV (it’s already available hourly on free-to-air radio) and what public benefits will flow from the new station. Try to be specific and not resort to babbling about nation building and the spread of democracy.
The world where people have to wait until 7pm to get news is a 20th century world of information scarcity. In a 21st century world of information abundance, citizens expect news and information on their personal schedule, not the broadcaster’s. 30 per cent of Australian households live in this world. The other 70 per cent want to, and the ABC has both the capacity and the trusted brand to provide it. Why shouldn’t lower income citizens get the same access to news and information that the privileged elites who can afford FOXTEL get?
As I said earlier, the proof that the ABC are onto something here is seen in the agitation this proposal has caused at News.
Terry @ 36 – ‘The other 70 per cent want to’. Do you have some evidence for this extraordinary claim or did you just invent it to support your argument? And are you seriously suggesting that 30% of the population watches 24/7 news? Just because they have access as part of a package subscription doesn’t mean they watch it or want it. I have access to CNN but I’ve never watched it in my life.
And even if they want to, I just pointed out @35 that giving people something just because they want it is not a sensible approach to public policy. The list of things people would like from the state for free is limitless. Can you articulate some actual public interest benefits that would flow from this new channel, as opposed to just satisfying this unfulfilled private preference which you claim exists?
Some relevant data instead of wild assertions would contribute constructively to the discussion.
The success of News Radio provides pretty strong empirical evidence of the appeal of on-demand news provided by the ABC.
Public interest benefits are a more engaged citizenry having greater access to a wider range of information sources, with particular equity benefits for lower-income Australians.
As far as I am aware, the ABC has not asked for an additional budget appropriation for the service. I presumably will be supported through internal reallocation of funds, as was the case with News Radio.
Also, Ken, if you have CNN you presumably have a FOXTEL package. Isn’t it a tad elitist to say that lower-income Australians can only have set-menu news when you have a la carte?
Ha the ‘success’ of News Radio. Now you’re talking. Enflessly recycled reports from overseas news agencies and the BBC interspersed with mediocre and superficial Australian news reports. Rinse and recycle and repeat 24 hours a day.
A great model for a TV news channel and with miniscule ratings.
And you are seriously claiming that this is not only what people want, but a sound allocation of public resources?
Keep digging, Terry.
So Terry @39 your political ideology is that the state should make everything freely available to everybody, because the idea that some people should be able to buy things that others cannot afford is elitist. I don’t recall even Pauline Hanson buying into such a lunatic proposition.
I don’t have Foxtel BTW. It’s a Sky cable package, 999 pesos a month.
News Radio’s ratings share is higher than that of Radio National for all demographics except the over 55′s. At any rate, we are moving from “mass” channels to “niche” channels, and Australian citizens have an entitlement to the benefits that enables without having to pay $125 a month for FOXTEL. Its the same logic as that which informed national networking of ABC services in the first place – developing a pubic sphere based around universal access.
I am surprised at the number of LP contributors who see the relationship between the blogosphere and public service media as antagonistic rather than complementary.
Quick Google search finds that News Radio was rating at less than 2% in 2008 in Melbourne and the same in Sydney in 2009. Obviously it’s filling a huge pent-up demand.
The free-to-air networks, via the Freeview consortium, are erasing the brand differentiation between FTA and cable television. Ten’s provided ESPN with Channel 1, Nine’s provided Fox 8 with Channel Go, SBS may as well be the Discovery Channel, and the ABC has covered Nickelodeon/Cartoon Network (3) and Sky (this current fatuous exercise).
I’m reminded of the Seinfeld episode where George and Jerry collaborate on organising one other’s love lives, contending that, working together, they may just be able to achieve the results of one normal man.
Also Mr Denmore @ #3 has it spot on. It will be wire copy-pasta with a suit. This is the technocrat Scott’s logic at work: copy the competitor and the product/service will become better.
Ken. you presumably wouldn’t argue that Four Corners should be pulled off air because its audience ratings share on Monday nights is lower than Top Gear?
Terry#39, The benefit of what I see as a high class news/current affair offering Free to Air is that (hopefully) it’s balanced, and offers ‘subject matter’ experts from Australia and elsewhere. Wouldnt it be wonderfull to have a News Service of such high standing, that journalists and researchers worldwide beat the door down to join – Goodness knows they probably wouldn’t be paid much but that wouldn’t be the main game.
Hopefully it would include as previously mentioned, Parliamentary reporting (Fed (esp committees) and State even Local Government).
Ken #37, though I can’t provide any supporting data, I simply dont believe, in a modern democracy, we need a public policy decision to be made about whether or not accurate, readily avalable news should be paid for.
Many people still do not have computers, the internet and/or cable. If you expect people to exercise their rights and participate in today’s democracy, you have to provide some essential tools. eInformation is no longer an option (its a necessity for participation in modern life – its a right).
Fascinated, I fully agree. Let’s not forget that about 40% of Australians – again, concentrated among lower income groups – don’t use Web browsers, and TV remains their main source of information.
I’d agree with rigorous cost/benefit analysis of any new proposal, but not with the argument that spending on the media, arts or culture is somehow “less’ important than spending on schools, hospitals or roads. All are vitally important parts of a civilised society.
I’m really straining to see the provision of a 24-hour television news channel (basically a rip and read, TV agency pictures, talking heads service) as some essential service of a social democracy, even if it is publicly owned.
What Mark Scott is proposing is a facsimile of Sky/BBC with endless station identifiers and “stay tuned” teasers, lots of visible corporate “branding” of the ABC, so that he can segue this sinecure of a job into one with an overseas network.
This has nothing – nothing – to do with traditional public service broadcasting. It is all about the ABC trying to show it can cut it with the big boys. They tried to do this back in 1995 in a joint venture with Fairfax remember. That got skittled when Packer and Murdoch pulled the plug on giving them room on cable.
To claim this is all about giving low-income people access to round-the-clock television news is just laughable. Of course, that claim all depends on the assumption that the big unmet demand in Australia is for another inch deep headline news channel. If it was such an untapped need ABC radio would rate better than it did.
Mr Denmore, as a self-proclaimed elitist FOXTEL subscriber myself, I tune in to BBC Worldwide when I want (1) the most up-to-date information on a story (e.g. the Taliban attacks in Kabul last week), and (2) depth. Subject to budget, quality of management, and quality of journalism, I see no reason why the ABC shouldn’t be aspiring to provide a comparable service, and without subscription fees. I’m not sure what the case is against this yet.
Oh, I forgot to mention that ABC News Radio didn’t have the resources to cover the Victorian bushfires or the Bali bombings when they occured. Humiliating, they used BBC correspondent reports. Yet Mark Scott can afford to lash out tens of millions on a white elephant television network 15 years after this sort of thing was in fashion.
No-one is arguing, Terry, that people don’t deserve access to free broadcast news. But I would argue they would get better bang for their buck by spending the money on a few reporters for News Radio and a few correspondents offshore.
Fascinated @47 are you seriously suggesting that people are currently deprived of free to air news? The airwaves are saturated with it. The question I’ve asked several times is what public interest benefit will accrue from making it available on TV 24/7 instead of people having to wait for a scheduled news bulletin? Nobody has even tried to respond, preferring vague nonsense about alms for the poor and engagement with democratic processes.
Terry it’s really not worth while trying to argue with you – you simply ignore points you can’t answer and change the subject. My point about ABC News Radio’s ratings was to rebut your ludicrous claim that 70% of the population are just dying to get a free continuous news feed. If this was actually true, one would expect them to turn to radio more than TV, given that people can listen to radio in many more situations than they can watch TV. And WTF does ‘spending on the media, arts or culture’ have to do with a 24/7 news channel? Are you now going to argue that an ABC news channel would be a cultural artefact?
I’m bored with this thread now and won’t comment again. It’s obvious that the only argument in favour of this initiative is that if you build this channel, some unspecified number of people will come to watch. Colour me unpersuaded.
As long as it is not and does not become simply a regurgitation of News Ltd material and biases, as ABC news (radio and television) currently increasingly does. And no Ltd News commentators either please, as Insiders.
NewsRadio gives “analysis” almost exclusively to the hacks from the Centre for Independent Studies, and Gerard Henderson.
Do you really think we are so stupid that we won’t notice this, Terry?
So as a result Australians shouldn’t get a 24/7 news service unless they are FOXTEL subscribers?
@25 – and that’s the point – Scott launches a service which competes with an existing pay for view product, and presumably out-competes it because it’s free for view.
But at what cost? Scott dismisses serving “niches” – and what that really means is that the resources stripped from Radio National in specialist areas such as religion and science aren’t ever coming back. Rather, in mimicking the ‘plays’ of ‘media moguls’ he dismisses as so 20th century, Scott does some empire building *at the cost* of quality and depth in other areas of the ABC’s existing portfolio.
That’s the whole point here, and I’m really struggling to see this as some sort of ‘democratisation’. I’d also like to see some research on who and how big the audiences are anticipated to be. It might well be that a lot will just be the very small numbers of political news junkies looking for their fix.
I don’t see why the point here is not the question of whether the 70 per cent of Australians who do not subscribe to FOXTEL may be better off as a result of a 24 hour free-to-air news service, particularly as commercial free-to-air services continue to strip back their news provision. If information is a cornerstone of a democratic society, then making more of it available on a non-subscription basis should benefit the democratic polity.
Mark, you are asking about ratings rather than unmet needs. Provision of a children’s channel was based on a perception of unmet or underserved needs rather than actual ratings. Is the ABC solely to be driven by ratings? if so, a lot of existing news and current affairs programming would be under threat. As I noted earlier “Top Gear” out-rates “Four Corners” on Monday night, but that isn’t a case for pulling “Four Corners” off the air.
Also, I haven’t seen any evidence that the service will be funded by pulling resources out of religious programming, science, Sheffield Shield cricket, the Triple J Hottest 100, or those obscure local rugby games the ABC runs on a Saturday afternoon. This sounds like a red herring.
Funding for Radio National’s specialist units has already been cut, Terry (I didn’t make any claim about the other areas you mention). It’s been confirmed that this new service is being funded out of “efficiencies”.
As to unmet demand, that’s able to be quantified. Statistical research on the propensity of people to use such a service is always going to be somewhat hypothetical, but in an age of evidence based policy, it’s surely reasonable to expect that something more than ‘vision’ should underpin such a major move. We’re talking about taxpayers’ money, not Mark Scott’s, despite the language of “shareholders” he likes to adopt.
I’d also note that the reach of this ‘democratising’ channel will be limited to those who have digital tv or a set top box, and presumably there’s a fair bit of overlap between those who do not, and those who don’t subscribe to Foxtel.
And, what exactly, if the question is access to 24/7 news, is the value that a tv channel adds over and above radio?
100% of Australians will have digital TV by 2013, even if the government has to give away digital set-top boxes. That’s mandated by legislation.
Why is it argued that there is no need to have news on TV when it is on radio, when no one would dream of making the same argument about sport – you don’t need the test cricket on free-to-air TV because its on ABC radio. Radio and TV are hardly direct substitutes.
I’ll bet you’d watch a 24 hour TV news channel on the ABC.
Add to that, the trashed ABC nightly news which once went beyond 12 minutes before it dissolving into rubbish human interest stories and sport. It almost avoids anything not within our borders unless it is too topical to avoid.
@59 – I might or might not, Terry, but that’s hardly the point, is it?
Why not, Mark? You’re a TV viewer and taxpayer, and hence a “success indicator” for the new service.
Interestingly, the Media Report and in depth programmes on Sport are among the other Radio National programmes axed under the Scott regime:
http://www2b.abc.net.au/guestbookcentral/list.asp?GuestbookID=357&view=&numtoview=&start=&sort=&filter1=&filter1val=&filter2=&filter2val=&filter3=&filter3val=&advanced=&pagestart=3
A “success indicator”, Terry?
I’m also a sociologist, so I know that my personal viewing habits aren’t likely to be all that representative!
That sport program on RN was a pretty serious attempt to look at the subject as opposed to the drivel they serve up on the nightly news.
And Terry I think most of us would watch a news station it if it was of a reasonable standard. There is just no sign that Scott and co have any interest in offering more than the padding out, already available on commercial television.
So I would say push Scott and the ABC for a better service, rather than denounce the whole venture. News Limited can be guaranteed to be doing the latter at every opportunity, as the British experience is now demonstrating.
Well, to be fair to Scott, Terry, he doesn’t decide what the quantum of ABC funding is. But I’ve seen a few new ventures in this sector funded by stripping back money from other functions, and often you end up with the worst of both worlds. Quality and managerialism aren’t friends, despite all the rhetoric about ‘metrics’ and so on.
I think a lot of real value is being lost from the diminution of specialist journalism in areas such as religion, culture, science, sport, etc. There’s a real contribution to the quality and depth of public debate there which a 24/7 headlines, repeats and talk channel won’t make up for. Choices have been made, and they’ve been made with little real debate.
You’ve referred to ‘democratisation’. Among other facets of the normative view of democracy most people work with is the capacity to present information based on in depth specialist knowledge in an accessible way, so as to stimulate informed decision making. I’d like to see *that* become more prominent in debates about the current and future role of the ABC.
Going round in circles now Terry. Mark and I have pointed out that Scott has already screwed down quality to pay for his expansive whims. Why would he change?
24/7 news as per Fox is the worst sort of e-wallpaper. It is an attack on the sensibilities of the unprepared and unwary, a form of audio-visual brainwashing. Truly appalling in its presentation of undifferentiated factoids that leap around from sport to fashion to politics to infotainment. The result (and possibly the intention) of this format is to remove meaning from content thereby reducing significant information about social reality to the same level as cat up a tree or millionare bimbo does rehab items. Still, Barnaby Joyce would be in good company there.
I’m not putting the case for Scott. But I would note that this is the first time in 15 years in Australia where there is serious high level support for expansion of the remit of the ABC and public service media, and the traditional arguments from the commercial providers that the ABC needs to remain a “marginal” service are not getting traction. I think that it is foolish to write that off, partly because it differs from what is happening elsewhere in the world (note here what faces the BBC when the government changes in the UK in May), and because the political circumstances can change quickly.
I also recommend caution in conflating structural changes with potentially wide ramifications from the conjunctural. Put differently, complaints about Virginia Trioli on the ABC2 Breakfast News program don’t constitute a case for getting rid of the show.
I agree completely on the importance of specialists in the ABC and not know-nothing generalists. CNN is a very sharp reminder of what goes wrong when you go down the latter path.
I also think we shouldn’t underestimate how important TV continues to be as the central source of information for a very large number of Australians. When you spend much of your life on the Internet, this can be lost sight of.
Very good point anthony nolan. The blandification of information where everything’s reduced to the same level.
I agree wholeheartedly with the last paragraph, Terry, but that again leaves open the question of what sort of information will be delivered.
There is something about the promise of “24-hour” news which makes normal human beings lose their judgement.
Now listen up. The bulk of the costs of this news channel are going to come from “live crosses” and transmission. That’s boring stuff like paying a contractor from an outside broadcast company $3000 to set up cables from 5am”to midday, so your ÄBC-5 reporter can stand in front of a camera for 30 seconds and say “the situation is still developing here Juanita, but from what we know not, nothing is certain”.
Television is theatre. It is 99 percent production costs and 1 per cent the cost of actual journalism, which is getting people out of bed on the phone, asking them questions they don’t want to answer and finding out stuff that nobody wants to tell you. And then getting abused because the production assistant spells the talent’s name wrong in the super.
Take my word for it. This channel on the ABC will do nothing for the quality of journalism in Australia. Zilch. Zippo. It will not make the citizenry any better informed than they are now dipping into the vat of cable news, news breaks on Seven, Nine and 10, half hour news on commercial radio and the ABC and reading the Daily Tele and Herald Sun. It will be same stuff, the same quotes, the same press releases, the same nominated spokespeople. All that will change are the people sitting in front of the microphones and their f***king logos.
If you spent a quintillionth of the money on a couple of extra researchers for Four Corners or the 7.30 Report or radio news you would be doing a better job for the citizenry than the money wasted on this. I don’t pretend to know much about anything, but I know how the sausages are made in news. And this is just another Hungry Jack’s outlet.
Mr Denmore:
“There is something about the promise of “24-hour” news which makes normal human beings lose their judgement.”
Just home from work and really appreciate the belly laugh of recognition at that.
The ABC has the resources – its website news reporting, news radio and current television bulletins. It’s not too much of a stretch to pull that together into a 24 hour channel – particularly if they incorporate quality overseas reporting feeds e.g. the BBC as they do on the 24 hour News Radio. If we look at the ABC’s News Radio model – yes, we will get regular top stories wrap ups, but also interviews and more in depth coverage. What excites me the most is the BBC partnership possibility – of getting authentic, quality global news. That would give the rest of the media an absolute fright.
To all who’ve held News Radio up as some kind of paragon of journalistic excellence, the only time I listen to it is when something I just can’t bear listening to (The Spirit of Things leaps to mind here) is on Radio National, and the music on DDD (Adeliade’s community radio station) is something I don’t care for.
I’m partial to ABC DIG radio 200 and 2001 (DIG Jazz) which provide non-stop, virtually unbroken music except for the occasional quirky comment such as (my current favourite): “As our Jungian friends assert all of life’s most fundamental problems are insoluble so lets all have a nice cup of tea and listen to this” (words to that effect).
Rachael will still pray for you David Irving (no relation)@77, regardless.
I’m sure she will, joe2 @ 79, but to which deity of the Californian pantheon?
I must say, I’m not seeing the problem here. If the program consists of the existing news, endlessly recycled and padded out in the small hours with feeds from the BBC, it will be a bit boring, but presumably close to cost free. If there is extra cost, that will presumably be the cost of extra news, which would be a good thing.
In fact, in a lot of categories, it seems as if more time could lead to a cost saving, with less need for news to be as tightly edited as it is now. The sports coverage in a half-hour report, for example, is almost always sketchy and inadequate.
I wonder how much such a deal would impact on the value of the BCC news channel to cable companies. I was recently overseas and the BBC news channel was one of the few english language channels available in the hotel room, I was somewhat disappointed with the depth of the coverage. For the most part it was the same 5 minute bulletin repeated multiple times over the hour spaced with ads. I sure hope whatever the ABC are planning it’s better than what the BBC offer internationally.
I agree with John Quiggin. Mark Scott has said that the material already exists but ends up on the cutting room floor (or whatever the digital equivalent is). So the added expense is pointing a camera at a couple of talking heads, Sky News channel, who then cross to the material that is coming in to the news room anyway.
With modern broadcasting, the costs of an extra channel are in the content. There is little cost in another channel per se. That is why pay TV consists of a small number of sport and movie channels and dozens of channels showing reruns of Hogan’s Heroes.
But with ABC4, there is no extra content cost, or not much in any case.
Of course you might want the extra channel devoted to Australian made drama rather than news. But there you’d be talking real money.
“Mark Scott has said that the material already exists but ends up on the cutting room floor (or whatever the digital equivalent is).”
Which is where it should stay, along with a lot more that makes it to air, masquerading as news. The only time a station of this kind could be valuable is when major news breaks. A full swing to bushfires or an earthquake, for instance, would be a push forward from often long delays.
John Q (and Sam) – it sounds to me like most of the complaining is from the point of view of imagining what we could have if some mythical ABC News and Current Affairs dept we’ve only ever seen glimpses of were to suddenly coalesce into ABC5 – The Very Platonic Ideal of Investigative Journalism.
The jaded, pessimistic flipside of this thinking is to say ‘well, even if it’s the same thing Sky does, at least it’s the ABC doing it’.
I’m somewhere between these equally useless positions.
Mr Denmore is correct.
Could a couple of extra researchers significantly improve 4 corners and 730 report? Or are these programs limited more by the fact that TV is by its nature a superficial medium that specialises in cut up clips of speeches and interviews and the emotional content of video+sound, ie. not good at trying to do depth in 45mins or less?
Every now and then a quality program like 4 Corners changes the world. I’m thinking of how the program put the skids under JBP in the mid-1980s.
It’s unrealistic to expect that something like this would happen on a weekly basis. However, once a decade is a good return on investment, IMHO.
So to answer the question posed at #87, TV is mostly a superficial medium, but not inevitably so.
Is everyone getting worked up about this because its a news channel? All the complains about money being siphoned off from Radio National etc. etc. could have been made about ABC3, but kids TV travels under the radar, whereas questions about a news channel get bundled up with debates about the standards of ABC journalism and views about on-air presenters.
Anyway, I think John Quiggan’s post covered the economics of the new channel very well.
Terry, I think the point is that a 24 hour version of that miserable news breakfast program is going to do more to damage the ABC’s news brand then enhance it. Add this damage on top of the damage already done to the ABC’s news brand by their stultifying Drum and Unleashed websites and you pretty soon have a very devalued news brand. It’s the ABC done the Fairfax way.
Is it our role to protect the ABC “brand”? Isn’t that what managers are paid to do?
I guess we’re fulfilling the role of shareholder activism.
This initiative is inexpensive to operate and generates the appearance of dedication to matters of importance. Smoke ‘n’ mirrors.
A decision of this magnitude will be a Board decision.
It is the responsibility of the Board to promote the best interests of the ABC.
Doubtless, individuals on the Board have their own agendas. However, they are no doubt aware of public discussion and are possibly even amenable to persuasion.
Agreed that the current News Breakfast program is terrible. Can’t win them all.
But the Drum and Unleashed seem fine to me, and ‘stultifying’ seems absurdly strong criticism.
And being the first to bring a 24/7 news channel to free-to-air only does good to ABC’s reputation in my mind.
Of course we all have different expectations of a news service, but could any of the above who think that this is such a good idea please tell us in what substantial way the current ABC news differs from its commercial counterparts?
If there is no substantial difference, I ask yet again, what is the point of an ABC news service, be it for 1 or 24 hours a day?
Good point adrian. I’d sell it off at this point. My memory of the high point of the ABC was of an organisation who would ask the hard questions of the Libs AND the ALP. In fact it got to the point where the ALP wouldn’t go on Triple J as the few times they did expecting a soft ride they would be grilled.
Now they may as well replace all their staff with an old guy reading out articles from The Australian.
In a word adrian – advertisements.
Not sure I could deal with impotence commercials on Aunty, as well, even if the news broadcasts are pretty lame.
To borrow a jaded slogan, ABC is paying attention to the idea that the ‘medium is the message’ when it comes to doing some public good for media in Australia.
If instead of doing all these things it was simply putting more funding into the content/quality of existing programs on existing media, I think it would be doing less public good, since the only people who would really take notice are the minority of highly discerning consumers who already probably do much of their information consumption on the internet anyway, not on TV or radio.
Let’s just say that abc news is essentially the same as 7,9 and 10 news (I don’t accept it is, but let’s just say).
So what is the point of ABC? To simply do news, but do it better, or with a certain je ne sais quoi that the other TV news’ lack?
Or is it
To drive change and innovation and access to diverse media?
By being in the vanguard of internet TV in Australia with iView and live streaming?
By aggressively offering free-to-air multi-channelling, perhaps spurring the commercial networks to do likewise?
By being the first network in Australia to offer 24/7 free-to-air news?
By establishing a strong online presence?
By offering a lot of radio national programming as podcasts?
By offering internet transcripts of programming such as AM and PM interviews?
Using the security offered by public funding to try out things that the commercial networks are too scared to have a go at, in order to drive change and innovation in the marketplace is exactly what I think ABC should be doing.
10 has a sports channel
7 and 9 have old-show re-run channels.
These can obviously be successful, but are hardly demonstrative of any groundbreaking change.
But points to ABC for a dedicated children’s channel that isn’t just about cartoons, and I think that a 24/7 news channel also shows promise. At least in my mind, the profile of ABC as a provider of news keeps on growing, with their push into new media, internet and multi-channeling, and even for other actions such as the high-profile poaching of people like Annabel Crabb, or the little things like twitter presence. These are the actions of a network attempting to lead from the front and make the other networks take notice.
SCPritch, the majority of your points seem to confuse technical innovation with content innovation. You can have podcasts, iview, internet tv, and any number of technological innovations, but they are worthless if the content doesn’t measure up. I downloaded the ABC app for my ipod touch for example, but deleted it a few weeks later because all it was giving me was the usual dross pretending to be news, on a different platform. Check out The Guardian app to see the difference.
If there really was any evidence that the ABC was interested in raising the standard of journalism, in providing a depth and breadth missing in commercial news, I’d be all for the 24/7 news channel.
Sadly there isn’t.
Apologies, I didn’t intend to confuse content innovation and technical innovation. I tried to separate them, by pointing out that if ABC is innovating just on a technical level, that is still of value. My point was that if you assume that content is equal quality across the networks, then technical innovation is arguably a greater public good than content improvement, and will impact more viewers.
“You can have podcasts, iview, internet tv, and any number of technological innovations, but they are worthless if the content doesn’t measure up.”
Agreed, but of course the content of ABC is not terrible (breaky show excluded), even if it could be improved. I still prefer TV news from ABC (or SBS world news at 930pm) over that of the other networks. And I actually access ABC’s website, whereas I don’t go near the channel 7,9,10 websites. ABC measures up to its Australian competition just fine.
I’ll check out the Guardian app….once I decide its worth $5 to access it on my phone when i can get it off the internet (or in Safari on my phone) for free.
Yeah, it’s costly but arguably worth it.
All the twittering and transcripting is just terrific, but the quality of any news service is ultimately about the news it breaks…and not just stuff like bushfires that fall into its lap. For that, you need reporters – people who go out of the office and find out stuff. These people traditionally are professional busy bodies. Some of the best are tech illiterate. Great reporters tend not to be people who cut and paste into weblogs,who spend their lives on Facebook and who rewrite press releases or who look good on camera.
The ABC already has enough pipes. It just needs news that isn’t predigested spundry fluff.
For that you need REPORTERS
Mr Denmore is quite correct. There must be room for reporters. Moreover, it is no longer necessary that they wear bad suits, pork pie hats and look like Leonard Teale from Homicide, which is how they all used to look, like second hand cops.
As romantic as your idea sounds, I doubt very much that some of the best reporters around today are tech illiterate. Maybe the best reporters in 1960 could be tech illiterate, and maybe there were even some around in the 80s, but not today. If you can’t plug into the massive streams of info/gossip/innuendo/etc offered by new media to help in fossicking for news, then you simply don’t have the capacity for speed and efficiency and reach to be a good reporter. Everyone else will find out about the story before you.
Honestly, what exactly are the kinds of stories that you feel we are missing out on because of a dearth of good reporters? Do you really think that in this day and age of cameras-in-phones and email and internet and satellite feeds that there are fantastic scoops out there lying unscooped?
Nonsense.
The truth is that if ABC (or any other network news) is not meeting your standards, then its due to their editorial choice of what constitutes newsworthiness not matching up with your own. That isn’t a funding issue, its an editorial issue. Its down to ABC reporting the news that other people want to hear about, instead of the kinds of stories you are interested in. Bummer. Go get the niche news and depth that you are after from the internet. In fact, maybe the fact that so many people are doing just that is the reason why TV news editors are choosing the mix of headlines and light stories that they do – because depth and narrow-interest news is better delivered elsewhere.
Nobody (apart from the journos themselves) cares which journalist gets the scoop anymore. News moves too fast these days, the scoop gets taken up by everyone else within literally minutes if it is newsworthy.
Between all the newspapers and TV stations, there are enough reporters and enough news for editors to choose from. And yes, judicious cutting and pasting out of the huge streams of info available is probably a necessary skill for editors and op-ed writers in this day and age, even though you tried to belittle it. Info filtering is the challenge, not info gathering – we have plenty of info.
SCPritch, oh how familiar that all sounds. “Now that we have all these new gadgets, we don’t have to dig for news anymore. It’s just all there already and our job is to use our shiny new tools to sort through it all”
Rubbish. Conservatives in media have used that line on real journalists for decades to suppress their real role as public advocates and questioners and inquirers.
You ask what news I am talking about?? I’m talking about stuff that other people don’t want publised – not celebrity fluff or ‘political’ news driven by press releases or stories based on ‘surveys’ assembled by PR companies or business ‘news’ that is nothing more than a recitation of prices.
What you describe is information processing and sorting. Your “journalists” are nothing more than glorified librarians and content providers, rearranging bits of pre-existing information from a vast pool of junk.
You say it yourself.”There is already enough news (sic) to choose from”. Gobsmacking.
As for journalists not caring anymore about scoops, I’m not sure what planet you’re on, but in my world (and I worked in newspapers, radio, TV and the web for 25 years),the desire to break news was what got us up in the morning.And don’t tell me the world has moved on.
Journalists in your world have no curiosity. They just cut and paste and rearrange pre-existing content.
No Chris Masters in your world, no Quentin Dempsters, no Neil Cheneworths. Just twitterers.
How depressing and what better argument against the ABC wasting tens of millions on a 24 hour TV channel that recycles the same old wallpaper.
There is a deeper problem which is the nature of the education received by aspiring journalists in the degree factories. Too much pomo cultural studies and not enough, if any, history, philosophy, economics and literature. An inability to differentiate the significance of cultural content characterises cultural studies in which everyone feels entitled to claim expertise because everyone is an expert on ‘what I had for breakfast’. Any attempt to assert greater significance to some events, political developments and so on is met with a characteristic sneer like SCPrich’s above:
“Its down to ABC reporting the news that other people want to hear about, instead of the kinds of stories you are interested in.”
Yeah? Who made you an expert in ‘other people’? SCPrich’s banality now masquerades as a democratic impulse by arguing that what ‘other people’ want is an endless stream of shite. Substitute ‘common people’ for ‘other people’ and the arrogant sleight of hand of ruling class consciousness becomes apparent.
Mr Denmore, you are caricaturing my views too much. I never said that reporters dont have to dig for news, I said that new media helps them dig, and that it is unlikely that there is a critical problem with big stories getting missed because of a lack of reporters in this day and age.
If you reread my comment, I said that journalists *do* care about who gets the scoops – I’m sure it still gets them out of bed in the morning, its just that everyone else doesn’t care who that journalist is. If they don’t get the news from the original journalist/network, they can get it from a different network 15minutes later, after the story is picked up by other providers.
And again, you seem to make light of the role of information processing (As opposed to info gathering) and sorting. I actually think it is the absolutely key skill for just about everyone these days, but especially important for researchers and journo’s. If you don’t get that, then I am forced to say to you: The world has moved on.
Anthony Nolan: it wasn’t a sneer. I’m not the expert on what other people want to hear, but I imagine that news editors are. You criticise me for the arrogance or ruling class consciousness, but in fact it is you guys who have a problem with the content of ABC news, which one can only assume is chosen by editors because that’s what they deterimine most of their viewers want to hear about.
I personally don’t find ABC news shite. As I’ve been saying throughout this thread, I just think it is catering to its medium – television. It can’t compete with other media on depth, so it does what it can best, which is attach pictures and sound and emotion to the main stories of the day.
Mr Denmore: “I’m talking about stuff that other people don’t want publised”
And are these sorts of stories not publicised because there aren’t enough reporters employed to find them? Or are they not publicised because editors have decided they are not newsworthy? Or to puncture the conspiracy theory, is their any proof that there are loads of big stories out there that aren’t publicised?
Bringing this back to the original topic: I am looking for some kind of justification that spending more money on researchers for 730 report and 4 corners is of greater benefit than directing funding to technical innovation such as multi-channelling and iView. In any case, I read that the ABC is hiring more journo’s to serve the new news channel.
Why dont we wait until the bloody station is on air and then decide
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jan/25/cudlipp-lecture-alan-rusbridger
This is the text of a recent lecture by Alan Rusbridger, editor of The Guardian, titled “Does journalism exist?”
It’s a fantastic read, and very relevant to what we are discussing here.
Found out about this via a tweet by Mark Colvin.
People worrying about the quality of a 24 hour news service on a free-to-air channel may well be overestimating the quality of what is on the other channels at 10.30am.