The ABC has deliberately and blatantly taken the stand of accepting anthropogenic global warming (AGW), when there is no compelling scientific evidence to substantiate the AGW hypothesis. Yet the ABC will swear black and blue that it is not biased.

There is little point in maintaining an ABC that refuses to comply with or to appear to comply with the impartiality requirements of its Charter.

IT SHOULD BE PRIVATI5ED AND SUBJECTED TO THE PRESSURES OF THE MARKET PLACE

Raycom do you mean sell the ABC and constantly have those fasinating and informative adverts interrupted by a "Reality Show". Even Rupert Murdoch would not consider that.....Then again he did bring Adverts into PAID TV!!

The whole point is the ABC is funded by the taxpayer and has a responsibility to represent the overall views of the community, not just those of its left wing staff. This includes global warming where it simply takes one view and dismisses all others.

There is no need to privatise the ABC but there is a need to make sure that it is staffed by people who come from all viewpoints, left and right.

Some years ago, before the ABC become quite as biased as it has recently, I was listening to 4QR, as I usually did.

In a time when another prime minister was taking some necessary steps to reduce the flood of boat people, I had just been subjected to a rash of 3 academics all ranting against any measures to stop them, [unbiasedly of course].

Getting sick of this I finally rang & complained. My conversation with the producer was as follows.

Me, "I'm getting a bit sick of this one sided argument you're promoting", in favour of boat people.

Her, "This is the general opinion we're getting".

Me, "Strange, when the last poll found over 80% of the population was in favour of stopping them". "Have you tried looking for someone more aligned with the population"?

Her, "Yes, we have actually, & couldn't find anyone willing to go on air".

Me, "Have you tried anyone other than academics, & the latte set"?

Her slightly annoyed, "We don't use the latte set, but there is a policy about [using] academics for opinion pieces".

There never was any balance added to the subject.

The only way to make the ABC a worthwhile organization would be to move it's entire operation to Longreach, [or similar place]. The latte set, & the would-bees would stay in what they consider to be civilisation, & perhaps some real people would take over.

What did I tell you people?

The only people that perceive an unacceptable 'bias' are loonies who think the purpose of a TV Channel is to appease every outspoken whinger (who believes that they are one of two viewpoints in the world) and make them feel counted- as opposed to give you a viewpoint (which is actually fairly balanced; although it does apply to most of our other channels too- if for anything they are rather neutral entirely to political issues).

To top it off, we have people so loopy they:
-are afraid of 'academics' (because being informed makes you a 'communist'
-Somehow politicize the debate of whether global warming is real or not, or man-made or not.

I do have a question though- what exactly is the 'alternate' viewpoint to an 'academic'?

Mac

Market failure is not irrelevant. There is market failure in free-to-air broadcasting because it is a public good – you can’t charge people to watch. Private free-to-air broadcasters make money not by selling programs to audiences, but by selling audiences to advertisers. There is no direct market link between what the audience values and what the broadcaster produces. Hence free-to-air broadcasters aim to maximise audiences and put out lowest common denominator, populist programs. Minority and specialist interests are not catered for, and there is no way for this potential market to express its preference by buying what it wants.

If restaurants were paid according to the number of diners they attracted not the value those diners placed on their meals, most places would serve pizza and burgers. Commercial free-to-air programming is the TV equivalent.

This is why we have government-run broadcasters but not government-run newspapers.

Pay TV weakens the case for government support because in principle it allows people who don’t want to watch the latest soap opera or cooking competition to choose, and pay for, alternatives. I do not think that it is (yet) a complete solution though as, in my experience:

a) programs tend to be bundled so the price signals are diluted
b) pay TV doesn’t commission much programming but mainly buys stuff already created in imperfect markets
c) there may be a cultural argument for support of “quality” programming similar for the argument for public subsidies for art galleries and museums