No-one appears to have asked whether a full stand alone broadcaster is the most effective way of delivering the claimed benefits of a public broadcaster. It would seem that most of the quality drama series (ex BBC etc) would certainly end up on the commercial stations if ABC had not got them first. And this would mean that either the ABC outbid the commercials to get first bite or that a closer deal exists between BBC and ABC to give each other preferential treatment based on exchange of programs.

If there are programs that a community (regulator) might deem there is a public interest in going to air, but which commercial stations might shun because of some shortfall between program cost and capacity to raise sufficient revenue from, then the best use of public funds would be to fund the difference, not the entire program.

This approach could also be taken in relation to Australian content. The ABC funds the entire program when partial funding may be all that is needed to get the same product out on a commercial station.

It is my understanding of the current TV market that there is a drastic shortage of content. So there is more than sufficient available time slots for content that has a public good element.

With this side of the argument dealt with, we could then get down to the question of why left wing political journalism is being publicly funded while right wing political journalism is not. Commercial journalism is not a synonym for conservatism or right wing views. It is what it says it is, commercial journalism. It pays for itself.

But the pure public political debate between the two poles does not pay for itself. It is severely distorted by public funding and resources to the green/left political camp and a lack of funding and resources to the free market ecology/right political camp.