I too was bemused by the inclusion of the recent blatant book promotion on 7.30 but was quite pleased in a way as it gave me opportunity to leave ABC1 in pursuit of more newsworthy items. Being a grumpy old man I no longer have much interest in what women want as their demands are never ending and they can never be satisfied no matter how hard I try!
But enough of that ...
I have noticed an increase in populist media trends in other ABC undertakings most notably ABC Classic FM radio. I don't beleive this station can legitimately call itself classic any longer as I hear increased amount of world music, alternative music as well as poem readings and other spoken narratives. On challenging ABC programmers on this I am told they are simply responding to public demand. But I am not told who the public is other than it is a younger audience. Hmmm ... Thank goodness for SBS and community radio!

I too was amazed At this. Doesn't it breach the ABC guidelines? It was just an ad for her book!

Maybe we can use our What the people want polls to give the ABC some feedback on their programs. I wonder whether Friends of the ABC would be interested in participating.

I missed that 7.30 Report (fortunately, apparently), but I've noticed these weakenings and interventions from above on ABC TV and radio. And I do so want to love ABC. Goodonya, Phil

Irrespective of the subject of the book, and the somewhat tenuous connection between the author and the ABC, the kicker for me is the gratingly self-absorbed Nikki Gemmel. She is so utterly pleased with herself that it made poor television with not a lot of entertainment value - not that Leigh Sales gave any indication of concern for audience engagement.

For the mutual admiration smarm-fest (sorry, interview) to be permitted to run for 8 minutes (thanks for that information about the duration - I didn't last the distance) was foolishly indulgent and boring TV, seemingly a long way from the remit of the nation's leading current affairs program.

Thank you Phil for a such a well written piece. The ABC has lost its way, for all intents and purposes ignores its charter and it's decline tracks the government's. Mark Scott in a quote easily found said he believed the ABC's duty was to serve the political intentions of the government (legitimate government I'm sure means to him left-liberal and statist).

The 'progressive' Green-Labor party has seriously injured it's public standing and likely excluded itself from government for a generation, similarly the 'progressive' ABC model has proven a failure. Talk now is about how the ABC will be broken up, decentralised, and released from its bondage to ideological inner city leftists.

I'm warming to my idea of doing a poll on ABC RN programs. I checked the results on our Sound Quality/Quiet Space poll and posted the results at http://whatthepeoplewant.net/polls-blog/october-2011/should-abc-rn-retire-quiet-space-and-sound-quality.html. So far a decisive thumbs-down, but a small sample, so anyone interested might like to vote at http://polling.nationalforum.com.au/index.php?sid=56763&lang=en.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12755#220253

ZandR, great comment, the spin in their answer to your complaint is typical of the bureaucrookracy in ALL situations. My interpretation of "public demand" is whatever their "programmer's" close friends & family think.

your correct, they need to get out more.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12755#220271

Kareninaus, methinks your correct, Media Watch anyone?

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12755#220277

GrahamY, i have thought from day 1 that you could try 1 question per day, or week on the front page of OLO. As http://ninemsn.com.au/ & http://au.yahoo.com/ do daily, i good simple, topical question carefully framed with a yes or no answer.

Or with multiple choice answers for more complicated issues. this could also include a link back to more complex surveys on the subject @ http://www.whatthepeoplewant.net/.

EG, i have had many D&M's on the subject of "boat people" with a wide variety of people from a wide variety of social circles & almost everybody in academia, journalism, bureaucrookracy & politics is OFF the mark, as far as "what 2/3's of the people REALLY want".

IMHO 2/3's of the voters from both sides of politics DONT want ANY processing, either ONshore or OFFshore.

They WANT them sent back ASAP, as in "first available Qantas seat home".

They WANT "unaccompanied minors" returned to their mothers ASAP, as in "first available Qantas seat home".

They have worked out that the purpose of mass immigration from third world countries is to create poverty in both nations, IE Australia & wherever thay came from.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPjzfGChGlE google all of these in the series & check it out for yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muw22wTePqQ&feature=like-suggest&list=UL this one is even better it includes a "playlist" which flows from one to the next.

Leadership, over 80% of voters want Krudd back over Juliar Dillhard, on repeated online polls for months on end, same numbers, it is IMPORTANT to us.

Here is my suggestion for a carbon tax question.

Q, Do you want 100% of ALL Australians paying a carbon tax/price to 1% of the world's filthy, stinking, super rich, international banksters/socialists?

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12755#220278

mayman, i have noticed this bias/weakening on the GAYBC for decades.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8630135369495797236# enjoy.

Formersnag,

"...filthy, stinking, super rich, international banksters/socialists."

You're slipping....you forgot the feMANazis : )

Well said ZandR.
I am an avid ABC watcher and listener, and have been for many years. I have, with frustrated concern, noted the sideways slip towards commercial TV and radio type programming and content. Classic FM and 7.30 are especially egregious examples of this trend. The blatant plugging of Ms Gemmell's 'long awaited' (not by me) sequel to her previous book - two plugs for the price of one - gave cause for deep concern. Classic FM's drive and breakfast shows are little differnt from corresponding commercial radio whilst Margret Throsby's daily two hour gabfest consists largely of book plugs and show promotion.
I wonder if the younger breed of ABC journos are fully appreciative of the role that the ABC is chartered to play in Australian life and the inestimable value of a non commercial independent media that broadcasts reliable analysis and information based on facts. The defense that they are responding to audience demands does not cut it with me - we do not yet let the lunatics run the asylum. Nonsensical weight loss diets, and women's alleged sexual requirements, are the province of commercial media whose main job is to cater to the air-head sector of the community. Give us the old ABC.

F/S

...Socialism is to Political correctness what Capitalism is to poverty:
One controls the mind the other the money = Labor unto Liberal. Great choices I don't think!

The percentage of my TV watching time applied to the ABC has fallen from around 90% to less than 9%.

Nothing would get me to bother with 7.30, & recently I have found myself even turning off Quantum. When the ABC can't be trusted to do a science program without it becoming almost totally left propaganda, there is every reason to chuck it on the scrap heap full time, rather than let it climb onto the junk heap, using our taxes to do so.

Today, a really excellent set of comments on the original interesting article.
Wake up Mark Scott. Look at the interest in your dying networks. Dying from a lack of quality programs, poor scriptwriting for local drama (some exceptions...there always are), repeats and repeats of repeats.

Saw the Gemmell bit and thought that she must have been Mark Scott’s daughter. Had no idea the author was an ex-ABC lady. They do look after their own. Now that was a real promo and the ABC is good at those...probably 20% of their air time, radio and TV. For what? If one is not an ABC listener / viewer yet, they never will be. Preaching, sorry, screeching to the converted.

Phil, as for “eating your cat”, may I respectfully suggest using a sweet chili sauce. It makes everything taste the same, but really good.
There are more people interested in asylum seekers or boat people or illegal migrants than you imagine. The erosion of our country by people who may never be Australians in any way, makes it a topic not ever too far below the surface. There, day and night and always will be, deservedly so.

But back to the ABC. The comments about Classic FM are valid. No more is it ‘Classic’ as we have known it for fifty years but an misplaced endeavour to be all things to all people, ending up however as nothing to anybody, full of inane prattle from 6am to 9am (except at weekends), populist programming to suit some agenda or other which they ‘justify’ by ‘research’ and absolutely full of advertising, promotions, ABC shop commercials and prattle by the bucketload.

cont

cont...

The ABC currently have ‘running’, the Classic 100 from the 20th Century. Soon perhaps the Classic 100 for Didgeridoo and Harp from People Above the Tropic of Capricorn or something else just as silly. Why not try Scandinavian Composers with Red Hair. They must be running out of options. People listened in the past for great composers, great artists and great music, only available these days on foreign streaming digital radio. And it’s good. In fact, it is the music that used to be on the ABC.
Not any more.

Where have those standards gone.

Then on TV, we see four TV networks, repeats ad nauseum, and programs that must have cost nothing to buy; cooking, cooking, cooking. Did I mention cooking? Third rate English documentaries. Feeding four TV channels is beyond the ABC’s budget. Thank Buddha for Media Watch, Four Corners, Foreign Correspondent, Catalyst and others proving we can be the best in the world at something, making the commercial channels look like American amateurs, which of course, they are.
Even so, they at least know what they are. They are crass and commercial and know it. It’s the business they’re in. Program content and quality? Who cares?
The management of the ABC on the other hand are still under the strange illusion that they have their fingers on the pulse, understand the public’s taste and caters for it accordingly.

Wrong Mr Scott. Please go back to the newspaper business. Move on and let us find a real professional to have an opportunity to educate, entertain and serve some valuable purpose. You have sacrificed good programs for expansion, a Scott-made empire but built on soft sand with little to hold it up.
The ABC has now grown too big but Mark Scott just don’t have what it takes to make it all work.

This commentary on 7.30 Report could be applied to anything the ABC does. I am a Radio National listener and while many programmes there are excellent several things grate. The common denominator is the things that grate are usually presented by people who seem to be at the ABC purely to impose their person on the unwitting public - Philip Adams and Tim Ritchie are prime examples. When will they ever understand public radio / television is for the listener and viewer not ABC employees and presenters. As a relative 'newbie' in Australia I cannot work out what one can do with the ABC. The central problem is that the ABC are 'critic averse' and neither welcome nor respond to criticism. Other media outlets of course couldn't care less if the ABC is annoying its audience. So where does one turn? And when will they ever consider changing the signature tune for the news - every hour for more than 40 years, that bloody old tune blares out.

Could we all please agree that that it's "it's" when we mean "it is" and it's "its" when we mean "its".

The final straw for me, with the ABC was a couple of years back, when large areas were flooded. During the first night of rain, it was so intense I thought there was a fair chance of flooding by the morning.

The power was all ready out, so I turned on the portable, which was tuned to 612. Now 612 is continually, even still, promoted as "your local ABC". This is a misnomer as it comes out of Brisbane, with presenters who, I'm sure, rarely get as far as 25Km from the Brisbane CBD, but covers much of the state.

Never having listened to 612 at night, I had not realised how far from their charter they had got. I expected my "LOCAL" ABC radio would give me some weather warnings as they had in NSW country towns, when I was a boy.

Concerned I stayed awake waiting for a news bulletin. Imagine my annoyance when I got one, which warned of a thunderstorm in Coffs Harbour, & proceeded to give a Sydney forecast for the next day. So much for the "local" bit.

We were 3 days without power, & flooded in for 4 days, so conditions were sufficiently bad for "our" ABC to have got their asses into gear, to do something useful, like give us some warnings. Of course this may mean spending less on the garbage they produce in Sydney, where much shouting means it is drama.

To say that I consider the ABC a total waste of space, is putting it too mildly

There are some excessive comments here, but overall it's a useful discussion.

1. It's clear that any sense of the ABC educating Australians is challenged and threatened by the demand that it be all things to all people.

2. ABC Classic ?? FM has surreptitiously introduced more and more dross into what used to be a classical music program. Most classical music enthusiasts do not like jazz and don't want to hear Mozart murdered by some oaf fiddling around on his flugelhorn. Better keep the jazz limited to an hour here and there so the rest of us can turn it off.

3. Cooking shows are cheap. Just put some silly pretentious people in a room with some ingredients. Tedious stuff, 90% of the time.

4. Yes, we are all tired of too many English programs. How many more people are there to murder in Midsomer Murders? How many more holes in the ground can Baldrick dig up? (yawn).SBS is clogged with English programs as well, lately as well as ponderous stuff on Aborigines by tedious people.

5. THE ABC promotions are ludicrous and repetitive. They always promote the evening's programs on Monday night and then we have a promo on Q and A- more pretentious blowhards

6. I don't as a rule watch 7.30 any more. Too many nonentities presenting.
Oh for the days of the staid but reliable ABC!

We care about the ABC and SBS because the commercial programs are so frightful. Try watching ( News. Unbelievable pap for the masses of little real news or entertainment value. Bring on the regulation of the media by some reputable organisation.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12755#220279

OZlabrynth, correct, that is why i spend more time on the net, OLO & FB.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12755#220281

MartinIW, spot on, try watching "insiders" on sunday mornings then switching over to "the bolt report", most illuminating to compare the naked communist propaganda to the balanced, centrist, conservative Bolta, having said that he can be a bit too libertarian & free trade sometimes.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12755#220282

GrahamY, how about 1 simple question per day/week on OLO?

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12755#220288

Poirot-5, no dear, did not forget the feMANazis, they just were not directly relevant to that particular comment/opinion.

BTW, why did you take that particular nick name? your radical extreme, communazi, international socialist, fauxMANista, views are erroneously OFF mark in comparison to the masculine, linear logic, deductive reasoning of Holmes+5 & Poirot+5.

Are you familiar with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmuth_Nyborg & http://www.helmuthnyborg.dk/Global-Witch-Hunt/GlobalWitchHunt.pdf the average male brain is larger by about 14% & 5 IQ points, contrary to the feMANazi myths.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12755#220294

GYM-FISH, the GAYBC has been DEgenerating towards the communazi left for decades now, it has just been more obvious over the last few years.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12755#220301

d/d, spot on, that is why i will be voting for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Katter & his http://www.ausparty.org.au/ & also being involved with http://austeaparty.com.au/web/ who work with good minor parties & independents.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12755#220305
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12755#220343

Hasbeen, like i said earlier try watching "insiders" then "bolta" on sunday mornings.

PS, i dont even want to privatise the RED gaybc, just reduce funding by 10% twice a year, until it is gone.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12755#220318
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12755#220319

rexw, good comments, on migrants have you seen http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhryKnRyqTk interesting, to say the least.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12755#220330

mORIARTY, if only you could have seen the GAYBC 40 years ago before the communazis took it over. good UNbiased journalism. not any more.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12755#220339

GlenC, http://www.rense.com/general32/americ.htm have a look at #17, third sentence in particular.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12755#220355

Bronte, http://www.rense.com/general32/americ.htm have a look at all of it but especially #20 to #26.

Yes Bronte, those were the days.

I loved the ABC for so long.

I really loved how good the research was. If ever you heard something on there, & thought the information was wrong, you had to go back to your research, as they so rarely were.

Yes those were the days, when it was hard to decide which you preferred, the ABC or The Readers Digest. Both usually had their facts right, & in a nicely condensed format for busy people.

I think I preferred the digest, it did have some humor occasionally.

I agree with most but not all of your comments Phil.
Yes...the book promotion was a Boo Boo.
Yes..7:30 should expand on the political events of the day.
Assylum seekers are a front & centre topic which does concern many and the Govt. is accountable for Border Protection.
I must admit to not being a fan of Aunty but seem to look to her for much of my evenings infotainment.Regretably her Hosts on most of her political programs,are insufferably of the Left and have no shame. I must say however that of all their programs, Leigh & Chris, so far, have shown commendable 'balance'. Pity that balance is not infectious in the "Staff-Run Collective".

And that's not all. On ABC Radio National Life Matters on Friday morning http://www.abc.net.au/rn/lifematters/stories/2011/3344035.htm
the entire hour was spent on Gemmell and her book.