Stuart Cunningham, a creative industries pioneer, has written in his new book that public service media, like the ABC, can sponsor innovation rather than chill it, especially when its competitors don’t have the resources to conduct research and development or where they aren’t a dominant player in the market.
Two examples illustrate this. The ABC’s iView online streaming service is a great example of a video-on-demand service. It is easy to use and has a lot of functionality. The ABC’s television audio description trials have also been a benchmark for accessibility.
Spigelman acknowledged that the ABC competes to a certain extent in service delivery. It was intended to be done after the 1982 Dix inquiry, which found that the national broadcaster is:
Slow-moving, overgrown, and complacent. Uncertain of its direction.
Dix was the catalyst for the Australian Broadcasting Commission’s transformation into a public company, adding innovation to its charter. It laid the foundation for its digital expansion.
The ABC’s online presence has had little effect on competition, despite the claims by News Corp columnist Andrew Bolt, who claimed that the ABC had stolen the thunder of fact-checking site PolitiFact.
It was clear that it did not deter the UK’s The Guardian and Daily Mail from setting up Australian online editions.
News Corp. has, as expected, led the charge for an investigation for commercial and ideological reasons. This has always been the way it operates.
In the 1930s, Sir Keith Murdoch, then CEO of the Herald & Weekly Times, argued that the ABC should not be broadcasting independent news or competing with private radio operators. Rupert Murdoch tweets his dissatisfaction with state-funded, leftist media.
BBC is a massive mouthpiece funded by taxpayers for the tiny leftist Guardian. Print media is about to be muzzled to protect toffs.
— Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) October 6, 2013
The BBC, News Corp’s worst enemy, has developed a test of market value that allows its development agenda to be more competitively scrutinized. Rupert ought to applaud this.
Public Value Testing
The BBC implemented a two-step process in 2005 to test public value. This would allow it to justify any new digital operation. Since then, the market assessment has been widely used across Europe to increase transparency and rigor in product and service development.
These so-called “ex-ante” tests have led to long, expensive, and ritualistic verification procedures.
In Norway, the national broadcaster NRK won its 2011 bid for developing a web-based trip planner with three partners from the public sector after 18 months of work, four levels, and royal intervention. The project was abandoned shortly after it had been approved.
These inquiries can be blunt instruments of policy and undermine the innovation process they are meant to support.
News Corp, owned by Rupert Murdoch, has been pushing for an investigation into ABC because of ideological and commercial motives. AAP/Dan Himbrechts
What else can I ask?
The ABC is one of the most scrutinized organizations in Australia. The regional commitment of the ABC has been the subject of two Senate investigations this year into Regional Television Production and News Services.
Over the past decade, there have been significant reviews or inquiries roughly every three to four years. These include KPMG’s funding adequacy inquiry (2006) Ste,phen Conroy’s Future Directions of the Digital Economy inquiry from 2009, and the Convergence Review 2012 by the former Communications Minister Stephen Conroy. It raises the question, what would be the use of another?
Reviews curb the scope and ambition of an organization. The 1997 Mansfield Inquiry, for instance, resulted in major reductions to Radio Australia’s network and forced ABC Online, as a “non-core” service, to develop for years.
Reviews can also deliver unpredictable results. The Howard government’s internal KPMG financing review of 2006 revealed that ABC required A$125,000,000 more over three years to sustain its operation.
In addition, the parliament’s approval for ABC and SBS Charter updates in this year was one of the few major policy outcomes of the Convergence Review. This mandated them to provide digital media services. Both parties supported the move.
It isn’t easy to imagine the value of a new inquiry or the political significance at this moment.