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Your ABC: proudly brought to you by your sponsors?

By Jill Greenwell - posted Monday, 21 May 2007


This service, the ABC, now belongs to you. We are your trustees. It is a service that is not run for profit, but purely in the interests of every section of the community.

Those words introduced the ABC to the nation on "the wireless" in 1932. In this the ABC's 75th birthday year, that quality of service, to every section of the community, continues to differentiate the ABC from the commercial broadcasters.

The prohibition on advertising protects that distinctive quality of the ABC.

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However the ABC's commercial independence has repeatedly been threatened with advertising. When a government-appointed Commission recommended advertising on ABC television and radio, the idea was rejected because, according to the then Minister, “it is apparent that people view the proposal as a threat to editorial independence and programming integrity” (Quoted in Inglis, K. This is the ABC).

Although that was in 1982, the threat persists.

Sold out with ads - the problem with advertising

The fundamental conflict between public broadcasting and advertising is that the focus shifts from programs to audiences. The company paying to advertise its goods or services wants to reach as large an audience as possible, at the times of day when that audience is captive, and it does not want that audience offended. It is not interested in an informed public, an inquiring public, an adventurous public, and it is certainly not interested in a diverse public.

The public broadcaster, not having to deliver an audience to advertisers, can focus on the quality of its programming and on the many specialist interests of its audiences. It can address itself to the idea of excellence, not the idea of acceptability.

Where do the threats come from?

Inadequate funding

In the lead-up to the ABC's triennial budget submission, advertising - discreet and regulated - was being suggested as a solution to funding problems.

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At the time Senator Coonan rejected the suggestions, but she has since been ambivalent. In fact she said that if the Board wanted to consider some form of advertising, consistent with the ABC Charter, for the next triennium, then it could do so (ABC AM, March 15, 2006).

Attacks on ABC culture

Attacks on the "ABC culture" are a looming threat. Membership of the current ABC Board gives no reassurance that the Board would reject proposals about advertising - or even see the inconsistency between the ethos of a public broadcaster and the ethos of commercialism. Keith Windschuttle, appointed to the Board in 2006, has said publicly that the ABC ought to be commercialised in order to break its left-wing culture.

ABC's existing commercial activities

The ABC already engages in commercial activities, such as ABC Shops, ABC publications, recordings and DVDs. The ABC also has a number of licence agreements for:

  • online delivery in terms of other sites that use some ABC content (for example, Bigpond, Yahoo);
  • the use of ABC content on mobile phones;
  • magazines like Delicious which can access ABC content under a licence agreement; and
  • use of ABC content by the new emerging category including on trains, video on demand, and in shopping centres.

Last year, in July, the ABC created a separate website, Countdown, built around the popular TV Countdown program - which carries ads.

These threats from existing ventures, as well as carrying all the risks inherent in advertising, could be used, like the thin end of a wedge, to justify expanding ABC's commercial activities.

Creation of “ABC Commercial”

The different standards applied to ABC commercial ventures and to ABC journalism was illustrated by the ABC's refusal to publish Chris Masters' Jonestown: there was not reasonable certainty of commercial profitability. By contrast the Editorial Policies (PDF 1.65MB) which apply to news and current affairs state that: Editorial judgments are based on news values, not … on commercial or sectional interests … 

Can these two different standards co-exist? Or will one predominate?

The SBS experience

Let's take a closer look at SBS, often cited as an example where ads have not compromised its quality. Originally established as a multi-cultural broadcaster, SBS was closely connected with ethnic communities.

Errol Simper wrote:

[SBS] was a fine station when it began in October 1980 under its first chief executive, Bruce Gyngell, and the founding chairman, Nicholas Shehadie. It bought in some excellent overseas material as Gyngell ensured it was, as the then government intended, a televisual window on the wider world. It probably did much to break down Australian parochialism and geographic isolation. The Australian, June 8, 2006.

Although to many of us SBS is still multi-cultural - Mary Kostakidis is not the only presenter with a multi-cultural heritage - closer inspection raises queries.

Back in 1992, when advertising was about to start on SBS, programs in languages other than English were moved out of prime time, and ever since then, English language programs have dominated prime (advertising) time.

By June 2005, George Zangalis, a former member of the SBS Board, criticised SBS for “moving away from its original charter”: increasing English language programming at the expense of programming in community languages, and focusing on mainstream sports rather than on different cultures.

SBS's search for a broader audience to deliver to the advertisers is also leading, according to some critics, to "the acquisition and commissioning of programs that are 'safer and blander'" (The Age, May 27, 2004). The targeting of a different audience - "the young female demographic" - was what Margaret Pomeranz saw as the effect of SBS's "increasingly commercial bent" (ABC Radio National The Media Report, November 4, 2004).

Not only has advertising skewed SBS's programming, but it has developed its own momentum. When advertising was first introduced, it was limited to five minutes per hour, was not permitted to interrupt programs, and was “tasteful”, “discreet”.

Then the ads became more strident, on SBS's own admission: SBS's director of commercial affairs said "In the past SBS has been reluctant to carry some ads, such as hard-hitting, in-your-face retails ads. That's changing" (Australian Financial Review, February 27, 2006).

The momentum really sped up when SBS introduced ads within its programs - drama, comedy, documentaries, news and current affairs - the lot. "Natural breaks", in for example a compelling documentary, are now filled with exhortations to buy everything from food to furniture, cars to carpets. Ads for upmarket vehicles belittle an issue like African famine.

But it will be worse than an exercise in bad taste. It will have an impact on SBS programming, as certainly as advertising already has, but even more extensively. There is a lesson here for the ABC. Any softening of the line against advertising will eventually lead to an unrecognisable ABC.

No such thing as “discreet” advertising

Just as with advertising on SBS, the effect of advertising on radio in the United States was gradual. When it started in the 1920s, it was genteel and low key. A company's name was attached to an entertainer or a program, but there was no reference to what the company produced, to where the product could be bought or at what price. The depression changed that and over time advertising became more aggressive, intrusive, and distorting.

"Corporate underwriting", of say, a "Commonwealth Bank Classic Drive" or a "Qantas Enough Rope", attracts only a fraction of the revenue brought in by the more overt and raucous "advertising", and over time it is transformed into something more strident - and more lucrative.

Canada by comparison

The distortion of advertising upon programming priorities is alarmingly demonstrated by an example from Canada. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's prime time national TV newscast was re-scheduled to make way for a pilot project for "some kind of American Idol program"! The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation had apparently made an investment in the pilot which it was hoped would run throughout the Canadian autumn, and in order to evaluate it, the national news was pushed back!

As Canadian Senator Jim Munson said, "surely to goodness, in this day and age, the almighty dollar may be good for some … but at the same time there should be a space and place for our public broadcaster to show and reflect what Canada's all about".

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's television service is partly funded by advertising, partly by government (in a ratio of about 2:5). The radio service however is fully funded by government, and carries no advertising. A recent Senate report in Canada has called for an increase in government funding of CBC so that it can get out of advertising altogether.

Senator Munson, a member of that Canadian Senate Committee described CBC radio - which is not commercially funded in any way - as a bridge, a bridge which spanned the country from Newfoundland on the Atlantic coast, to Vancouver on the Pacific coast. He said, "what the CBC in this country gives us is a mature, independent, public voice of a broadcaster, the only public voice in this country. If we allow advertising on CBC radio, on which there is no advertising, I think it would be the death knell of our public broadcasting system".

Sounds reminiscent of our ABC doesn't it?

What's the protection?

Currently advertising on radio and television is prohibited by the ABC Act (Section 31), "The Corporation shall not broadcast advertisements". It would require an amendment to the ABC Act before we could see or hear ads on ABC TV or radio.

There are two concerns here. First, legislation is not the constraint it was, now that the Government has a majority in the Senate. This is illustrated by the 2006 amendment to the ABC Act abolishing the position of Staff Elected Director on the ABC Board.

Second, advertising online is not explicitly prohibited by the ABC Act, drafted as it was before the Internet came into existence. Although pressure to carry advertising on the ABC's website has been resisted so far, a black letter interpretation by the ABC Board of "broadcasting" could see ads on ABC Online.

What is at stake?

Those inspiring hopes, articulated 75 years ago, of service, not for profit but purely in the interests of every section of the community are what are at stake.

It is worth pausing over those words: “a service”, “not for profit”, and “every section of the community”. All very strong words, and in 1983 they were embodied in legislation, in the amended ABC Act 1983. Section 6, the Charter, sets out that the ABC must provide "innovative and comprehensive" broadcasting services "of a high standard", The ABC's programs should "contribute to a sense of national identity" and should "reflect the cultural diversity of the Australian community".

I would contend that it is only a “not for profit” organisation which could meet these standards. Commercial networks deliver audiences to advertisers which target narrower and narrower demographic categories - “household shoppers”, “dual income no kids” or “empty nesters”.

By contrast, we look to the public broadcaster to respond to the need for programs about history, science, education, sport, our natural and built environment - wildlife, architecture, the way we live generally and the international as well as national dimensions of these. Similarly, there should be programs about regional and rural life throughout the country - as are provided now. Children's programs are vital also.

Finally, there should be programs and forums dealing with our differing cultures, religions and histories, providing balance and fairness for all groups, whether majority or minority.

The ABC has a proud record, in both radio and TV, which should be maintained.

When asked what he thought distinctive about the ABC the late Andrew Olle answered in one word: “credibility”.

That’s not a bad test. A broadcaster you can trust. That surely means trust to give you the truth, and behind that is a whole range of things - to have done thorough research, to have looked at all sides of an issue, to have recognised an issue as just that and to have put it before the public.

And that is the sort of independent voice which only a public, non-commercial broadcaster can possess.

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This article is an edited version of a speech given to the 2006 Annual Conference of the Independent Scholars Association of Australia held at the National Library of Australia, October 19-20, 2006.



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About the Author

Jill Greenwell is the President of Friends of the ABC (ACT & Region).

Other articles by this Author

All articles by Jill Greenwell

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