...The ABC and Education are on a parallel course to “nowhere”… both are guilty of issuing outcomes of dross…any wonder when 90% of budgets are consumed in wages…!

Good article.

<<Senator Cory Bernardi said that whatever else it was, it was 'not our ABC' - by which he certainly meant 'the Coalition's ABC'>>

I'd interpret it wider. It's not the coalitions ABC, and it's not even the ALPs ABC, but most of the time it comes pretty close to being the Greens ABC.

The situation with the ABC is nothing short of outrageous. They don't even make any attempt to hide their blatant bias. Why should any group, let alone a political minority, have the privilege of government funding of their choice of endless nauseating big government propaganda on multiple channels? Imagine if it was a minority religion being publicly funded to air its own biased version of everything all the time, like the Scientologists, or the Baptists or the Catholics. Everyone would recognise straight away the issue as a matter of principle and reject it.

Well? Any discussion of the ABC needs to start with why anyone should be forced to pay for the government to run a broadcasting service in the first place. The hope that they will ever stick by their code of conduct is vain - Caesar appealing to Caesar - but even if they did, there is still no reason for it to be government funded.

People who want to listen to that content can pay for it themselves. The suggestion that they are serving some higher social value is laughable.

The ABC should be sold off immediately.

Why do I get the feeling you all tune into Alan on the wireless set.

The right's war on reality is fighting another battle it can't win.
What next governament funded creationist channel?

Notice how cobber doesn't give any *reason* why people should be forced to fund the ABC, and instantly degenerates into name-calling and accusations of unreason? This is the left wing's idea of a defence of reason.

It's the left wing who are the creationists, with their superstition that government magically creates benefits for society at no cost through stealing money. Completely nutty.

Cobber, why shouldn't those who want the ABC fund it themselves, and those who don't, not be forced into it?

Can anyone tell me if there are any men employed in the ABC newsrooms? From what we see a equal opportunity action should improve the staffing balance, in favor of men.

It was just after the promotional blitz of the new lady news anchor in Queensland, & her taking the chair that I finally gave up on the ABC news.

It had all ready become dominated by the left, but you could skirt around that, & get some idea of important facts. Now the topics covered have become so feminine interest dominated, & even international events so covered from the female interest point of view, it is not only biased, but actually useless in getting any real information from their coverage.

It is a little like the new news at 7.00 PM on some commercials. They have introduced the same light weight coverage in these as they apply in their morning programs. "Human Interest" type garbage, all about feelings, with nothing factual to base your opinion on anywhere. It is aimed straight at ladies having a nice sit down with a cuppa.

This it now appears is the idea of ABC news. Avoid anything factual, your reporters have to have some nouse to do that type of reporting. We now have a bunch of university trained "Journalists" who's only qualification appears to be the ability to write good "what I did on my holiday" essays, & that is the level of news coverage.

Yep sell the ABC if possible. If no one will buy it, give it to the Labor party, even pay them to take it. With their management ability, it would send them broke in just a few months, & good riddance to both.

Yea Hasbeen,
Donate the ABC labor and the greens. No funding, no subsidies, allow advertising and other media broadcasting besides tv and radio.
Broke within months and we'll be saddled with unemployable left wing propaganda journalists for a lifetime. Yea they'll all head to Nth Korea or Cuba to continue the struggle or enlist on greenpeace ships attacking russian oil production assets.

Nutter, better to be paying them unemployment benefits than $200,000+ a year, & all the add on costs.

I reckon we'd be saving $900,000,000 a year at least, & could sell the spectrum to someone else to recoup that. Surely worth saving that many 000s.

There's only one solution: appoint Rupert Murdoch as Controller Of All Media!

Then Australia could get 100% American coverage 24 hours everyday. This would insure that we as a people end up as lobotomized as most Americans are.

Yeah, Rupert's the Man! Home-grown too. Bloody beauty! Then American football could fill our screens along with Ice Hockey and basketball with seven foot black giants, and Faux News!

Down with the ABC. Up Rupert! He could be our President! Abbott could be his Muse!

rather obscene to see ABC staffers paid more than pollies to push their godless doctrines. The SBS could easily pass for a porn channel. Disgraceful. No wonder they critize Murdoch so much as people vote with their money. Socialist know no shame.

Long may the ABC reign in its present form.

David G and Atejay I agree with, why are the rest of the respondents watching the ABC,if you do not like it, go to your beloved one eyed Murdock channels and watch the commercials instead, or better still just read the one eyed Murdock daily papers, I pay to read the garbage of Andrew Bolt in these papers, the same as you are paying and obviously watching the ABC, turn it off,and stop complaining, they do have programmes which I am sure you watch.
Thank goodness we have people like Edward Snowden and the ABC who let us know the truth on what is going on with secretive parliaments, I want to know even if you don't

>"There were some there who would sell it off, some who would just abolish it, some who are just angry with it but don't have a solution, and some who would sack the CEO."

I heard an interesting idea today. Split the ABC into two organisations. ABC #1 would do politics and current affairs and ABC #2 would do music, sport and all the stuff that is not political and for which the ABC is highly valued by many Australians. Since children's programs are politicised they'd have to be in ABC #1. The funding for ABC#1 would be reduced until it demonstrates it has eradicated political bias.

"""
There's only one solution: appoint Rupert Murdoch as Controller Of All Media!
"""

What a load of codswallop! Murdoch is going the way of the dinosaurs like all the other lame stream media outlets. The net will kill them all sooner than later. And as for the ALPBC, sack the lot of them, they're all BS artists using their positions to destroy this country, it's as plain as their bias!

You really start to wonder about the grey matter of some of the friends of the ABC when you see comments like this, from Ojnab.<<I pay to read the garbage of Andrew Bolt in these papers, the same as you are paying and obviously watching the ABC>>

WTF!

The last I heard Bolt & co were not the recipients of govt funding --you can choose whether or not to pay Murdock (for his newspapers) but sure as hell if you're a tax payer you cannot choose not to fund the ABC.

I guess it harks back to that central tenet of lefty thinking: the community has an obligation to fund me and mine.

The ABC is the perfect example of why we need voter initiated referenda in Oz.

The ABC would not last past the first vote.

I am happy for my taxes to be expended where a news and information service does not exist.

However, while that may have been the case many years ago that necessitated expenditure of taxpayers' money on the ABC and later the SBS, it would be ridiculous to argue that the public, including ethnic people who cannot understand English, do not have such information available to them through other broadcasters and the internet.

In fact there is so much news, views and entertainment available that media outlets are restructuring to remain viable for their shareholders.

Two separate publicly-funded national broadcasters is an extravagance where governments quibble over funding for aged pensions and care. Many Australians are presently going without medical advice and treatment because they cannot afford to visit the doctor.

At the very least, the SBS and the ABC should be combined, NOW!, to remove some of the redundant management overheads of public broadcasting.

Sorry to double-up, but on my morning walk today I noticed another closure of a hereto successful local business.

It reminded me of Howes the union heavy who recently said that 'mums and dads' should get out of farming because they are not part of the future as he saw it.

<AUSTRALIANS want farms run by families, Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce said as he rejected as "dopey" a call by union boss Paul Howes to end the nation's era of "ma and pa farming".

Mr Howes ignited a firestorm of criticism across rural Australia yesterday after he suggested the agricultural sector needed to look to the US -- "where you have large-scale conglomerates that can diversify"-- if farmers were to transform Australia into the food bowl of Asia.

"It essentially means the day of ma and pa farming in Australia needs to end," the Australian Workers Union national secretary said.>

http://tinyurl.com/Howes-and-family-farms

It is interesting that union boss Howes reserved his criticism for hardworking farmers on wretchedly low incomes, but he doesn't criticise two separate highly-paid management structures and all of the doubled-up technology and facilities to maintain the public broadcasters that are a constant drain on the Budget.

Welcome to another advert ridden channel if the ABC was taken over by other commercial means, the ABC and SBS at least do show some consideration for viewers, perhaps only those with grey matter in their brains must like the endless showing of advertisements, well I don't, regardless of the channels political leaniings

Ojnab,

<<another advert ridden channel if the ABC was taken over>>

Not necessarily ...and besides you're too down on ads ...ads provide the necessary break to visit the bathroom, refill on popcorn ...and ads may even be trans-formative moving one to do things or stop doing things--remember those antismoking ads, and those random breath test ads,how many people have had their behavior modified of account of seeing them ...and, on my part,every since someone showed me this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ac9XE2Koxg I've had an overpowering and inexplicable urge to change my name to Rex.

A new production of "Big Brother" is coming to your TV screen soon, starring Hasbeen, Runner, SPQR, Imjulianutter, Jardinek.Jardine and Diver Dan.
This will be an exciting moment in TV history, as the participants argue about bringing back "Crystal Radios" and "Phar Lap". They will also be appearing on "Deal or no Deal", "The Biggest Loser" and other commercial television "intelligent" programmes

Yes, but how many taxpayer-funded national broadcasters should there be?

How many can you watch at once?

What other priorities are not receiving adequate funding?

It must strike electors that government finds all manner of other 'initiatives' to spend taxpayers' $$ on, while the fundamental, pressing essentials that government was set up to provide often go begging for adequate funding.

JKJ my Mum always said the best way to look a fool was to argue with one. Anyway this thread has been called by runner.....

True Kipp, absolutely mind boggling shows on the commercial channels, lets have the ABC join them, Tony Abbott has been offered space on Q & A, it would be great to hear a Liberal viewpoint from him on this show, but he always declines, why, we want to hear from him, not that terrible labor propaganda who so many here find distasteful if the Liberal leader can not oblige with his views, how can the ABC be classed as one eyed, I think I will have a five minute advert break before the next five minute advert break comes on, after five minutes of programme, welcome to the commercial ABC, enjoy.

Notice how none of the supporters of the ABC have given any reason why anyone else should be forced to pay for them to have a media service? All we get is mindless ad hom. Let them pay for it themselves!

Note to David G: no-one is forced to pay for Murdoch's publications you fool.

The ABC should be sold off immediately.

The ABC is under staff capture.The only way to deal with this is to split the organisation up-firstly by separating tv,radio,orchestras etc and then doing it by state as well.The organisation is Sydney and capital city centric so that should be addressed as well.

I love it when all the right wing rednecks come out screaming their liberal brainwashed epithets.
It shows that there is a glaring need for a balance such as the dear old auntie ABC to keep thing straight and level.
Just imagine if you only had a choice of yank rubbish, pathetic game shows, hackneyed soapies with maybe the radio shock jocks having a segment on TV.
I am amused every time there is an ad for "freeview" and they tell us how lucky we are to have so many channels.
If they banned repeats, all of commercial freeview channel would be off the air.
It is only a platform to feed more ads to the proles.

Raw mustard sorry but you are quite mistaken. The net will not be the death of hardcopy newspapers.
Currently circulations are falling but advertising revenues are increasing.
While that is the situation the newspapers are proving to be a more effective vehicle for advertising than the net.
If you think people buy papers simply for the news you are dead wrong.

Kipp

What's 'Big Brother'? Is it some kind of socialist pantomine like ABC 24 propaganda?

Robert Le Page's post is telling in a number of ways:

Firstly, we see in it the born to lord-it-over-you-lot mentality of the friends of the ABC,and secondly, it demonstrates how ill-informed you get when you rely on ABC sources. Robert (and most other FOA) evidently see ads as synonymous with non-government run TV --only an ABC viewer could be so badly informed.

Actually if he was to watch CCTV --and CCTV here stands for CHINESE CENTRAL TV (and it has at least 17 channels.All of then owned and run by the Chinese government) Its channel are packed full of ads (restaurants, health remedies,beverages, cosmetics...[all private run enterprises by the way]). CCTVs format differs to ours in that it tends to run ads in blocks, so you'll get the program for 3/4 hour uninterrupted then you'll get a block of ads that may run for 15 minutes +/-.

Perhaps we could (re)imagine an ABC which had to sell advertisements to justify/fund its progressive leanings?

People with low intelligence like Jardine love commercial television.

The commercials ensure they don't have to concentrate for more than a minute or so and they can learn to sing the jingles and laugh each time at the same silly jokes.

Let the bulk of people enjoy their 'Free' television, I say. It ensures a mass market of zombies who buy whatever is advertised whether they need it or not.

"Oh, what a feeling!"

"""
If you think people buy papers simply for the news you are dead wrong.
Currently circulations are falling but advertising revenues are increasing.
"""

@ imajulianutter

I never mentioned newspapers but whatever. I also find your statement a bit hard to believe. In any case, people are funding their desires with their own money, unlike being violently forced to pay for something they have no desire to watch or listen to. It's a known fact that the net is reducing these big outlets influences all over the world, just look at the latest report on American big players, they're down some 40%. It's not just the ALPBC that are despised for talking crap and they do plenty of it!

The fact that the government channels are still alive and prospering after a collective 80 years is certainly a negative reflection on the Coalition government. They regularly speak of their bias, occasionally refuse to be interviewed, and yet allow them to continue being financed by the taxpayer year after year.

That conservative attribute of those politicians who are afraid of serious change and would rather put up with thorns in their feet mile after mile rather than actually displaying the courage to do something about it.

In a hypothetical situation where the ABC and SBS were consistently right wing (yes, very hypothetical) could you really imagine Prime Minister Paul Keating simply tolerating it? Within months of taking office he would be abolishing it with whatever argument at hand. Eg “In times like this when people are struggling to pay …..can we really afford to maintain …”

Does the ABC have a purpose? Promoting good journalism, and Australia are certainly not included.

No one is asking the ABC to be a government mouthpiece, but a simply a responsible organisation with a non political agenda, like other public servants.

Bit of a problem, am looking for a wedge to hold up my right leaning monitor around here. Lot of libs here showing why they always think they should be in Government and everyone else, well they are everyone else and to quote Maj Frank Burns 4077 MASH "Its everyman's inalienable right to be poor."
Nothing new here just the same hacks pushing like mad to make you believe if you repeat it often enough it must be right.
Wonder how Ms Credlin and her media types are trying to script next week for us.

Jardine K. Jardine to call David G a fool is offensive, we must have the truth from TV channels whether they are commercial or not, sadly lacking, we the public should know what is going on in Governments, after all we elect them to do just that, not to be secretive once elected, if you notice Iran seems to be no more a threat, and all is quiet, awhile back war was on the agenda, but now we are having secretive meetings with allies that China could be the next war area, if the ABC were to report on these secretive meetings I for one would applaud them, I want to know what is going on
If you are happy to prefer "Deal or no Deal" that is your perogative, Abbott and people like yourself do not want an information channel for free. I reiterate I want to know what secrets Governments are hiding, remember it will not be he politicians in the front line of war, but the ordinary people, they only lay the wreaths after. ABC keep up letting us know.

The ABC was created by an act of Parliament and it can be abolished by an act of Parliament if it does not live up to it's original charter of presenting a balanced reporting of the news.

I would not like to see the ABC abolished, but the time has come for the people's representatives to sack every member of the ABC board and replace them with people who are either even handed or at least represent a broad range of views. It is clear that the present board has become completely inbred with leftist ideology and that it is beyond redemption. Nothing less than a complete renewal will accomplish anything.

The ABC was needed when there were no independent stations. The argument that it should exist to provide services in Aboriginal languages etc now also falls flat, as independent stations provide better and cheaper services. The ABC's raison d'etre no longer exists, other than as another monument to nostalgia.

Selling this dinosaur would help pay off Labor's debt, and the $1bn it gets annually could be put towards education.

"The argument that it should exist to provide services in Aboriginal languages etc now also falls flat, as independent stations provide better and cheaper services"

Can't the National Indigenous Television channel NITV do that if and where needed? NITV seems to be government funded and linked to the SBS, also guvvy funded.

As a matter of fact there is so much guvvy funding being spread about that it is a wonder how government can ever afford the fundamentals it was set up to provide in the first place.

People bitch and moan about their 13 cents a day for the ABC but don't realise that the so-called "Free-to Air" costs them far more and are yet they are not accountable for their content.

Every product that is advertised includes a levy for that cost. Even a small percentage of your total expenditure is far greater than 13 cents per day and that's from consumers, not just from taxpayers.

Every government hates criticism but it's the paranoid conservatives that truly see it as conspiratorial.

Bias in the ABC but none from Murdoch and Fairfax?
Whitlam, Hawke, Wran, Keating Rudd and Gillard all had complaints about their ABC coverage too. Compared to the ALP coverage over the last few years Abbott was given a pretty free ride from the ABC and managed to avoid scrutiny, yet continues to do so.

Howard started to sabotage the ABC and Abbott will now try to finish the job and start the dismantling process.

Removing the free on-line content from the ABC will give the private media a leg-up to keep charging for theirs while keeping dissent out of public discussion. You'll have to pay to find out what they want you to think.

The big payoff will be seen when Murdoch gets awarded those rights to broadcast into Asia he was denied under Rudd.

Be afraid.

I guess the Conservatives won't be happy until every television channel shows a continuum of commercials combined with bits of movies and sport supplemented by mindless quiz shows.

People are already showing that, once fed this diet of fast moving 'intellectual pap' they can't sit down and watch serious debates or follow political discussion. As long as they see movement and hear lots of noise it doesn't matter what's on the screen!

The ABC and SBS are all that stands between us and total mindlessness!

Long may they reign.

Shadow Minister, I would sooner the many, many billions spent on unnecessary wars ,just to be sucking up to that country of creating wars, the USA, than a billion spent on the ABC which is chicken feed, your priorities are in the wrong place

Hmmm, I watch quite a lot of the ABC, particularly drama from the UK.
The news I watch also, but the bias does not worry me as it is so
obvious. However Q&A I had to give up watching, it is so bad it made me sick.
Re adverts, isn't that why they invented video recorders ?

What does really get up my nose is the childish teenage programs that
they seem to put on after 9-30 pm.

As far as the porn station is concerned I only watch some documentaries early around 7-30/8-30.
SBS should be closed, it is promoting multiculturalism which has failed everywhere.

Edward Carson, Ojnab, wobbles and David G:
Thanks for some enlightened comment on this thread. Keep it up guys and long live the ABC.

JKJ and shadow minister don't want anyone to be intelligent, to question or to be disloyal. The ABC and SBS are not partisan, unlike our 2 learned columnists here.
If you have seen US tv in the USA Swamp people, American pickers and interminable police shows real or not. PBS is funded publicly, though am sure our two columnists would find cause to disagree and find fault with that.

The right wing, since its election have taken to the blogs and airwaves to rough up any dissenters and talk of their beloved leader being inept and whip up or try to a frenzy about things dear to their blue hearts.

Sad, y'abbott said he would govern for all, carefully, diligently and methodically, well some more than others and for others self interest but not everyone's.

Watch out the Libs are about and selling off now what Howard couldn't, telling you its the ONLY WAY...their way, which is flawed and not the only way...phone trolls, blogs trolls man/person your posts.

Very Curious,

I am looking forward to the day you actually pose a question instead simply slagging off the Coalition. In fact not one left whinger on this site does any different.

It looks as though Electricity Bill has determined to block everything even those Labor promised to implement, such as getting rid of the carbon tax and the reduction in University funding.

Labor is the new Noalition.

I look forward to the day, when the liberal party can govern in their own right.
Whats the saying ? "Oh! yes!! "Pigs might fly"

Kipp senate election in wa and new senate next year will see utter liberal domination again. Can't wait.