It is indeed unfortunate that bean counters are permeating the higher echelons of our esteemed institutions. This has happened in many industries, many of which were started by people with passion for their particular medium.

As for the jargon..."Changes to the 2009 schedule are necessary as ABC Radio National looks to the future to ensure that its radio line-up is focused not just on traditional content genres but on contemporary intellectual discourse in Australia and worldwide."

This sounds like a sentence constructed by someone totally unsuited to communication of any sort.

Probably close to being on the money. Don't reckon ABC management is post modernist. More likely their influences come from Milton Friedman.

I don't have a problem with management - only bad management. How many times have we seen new management move in with pledges of new ideas only to go back after six months to trying to reintroduce old ideas that have failed?

it is time to resque that abc
their calls for ideas cannot be taken seriously
only boys from the boys club may join

we should be served an alternative[to general broadcasting]
but are fed pap
and the same murder sport cooking [cheap programing]
mind cccrap all the other stations give

take news radio
broadcast on the specrum of a perpetual hum
i cant recieve it clearly, the buzz is EGSACTLY on the same specrum

but i can hear horse racing
on its own broadcast spectrum ;perfectly
[think why this is]

we have mindless QUIZ shows [and panel shows, and book shows [passed off as australian content]

abc should be a treacher [home schooling ]history, govt reporting]law order [not policing]how to resque the abc[join it to sbs]sacxk al the sell outs selling us entertaintmeant

get back to core duties serve to educate and inform us [in the areas the others wont touch

give us the deebates
[the complete picture
[not programing ,nor simply reporting but investigation analyse

put the archives [in full]on the web

rent the footage
or pay for download
colate the stories by subject]

sell off sports, sell off the sucesfull shows
[to make new programs ,made with apprentices ,not expensive 'staRS'

the core stuff should all be onsold
[on the condition of its on air contiunuance]
that reverts back to abc [once its on air ends]

BUT IM SICK OF GIVING THEM MY IDEAS FOR FREE
the buzz on my NEWS?radio
confirms evil is deliberatly dumbing us down

BUT im free to make a gamble
even then the WORST gambelers gambell stock in companies too big to fail ,knowing we will be advised to bail them out

abc should have fully taught its lisyteners the stock scam years ago
it didnt because it IS deliberatly DUMBED DOWN by sellouts selling us the boys club spin[sack the lot]abc needs NO STARS [just the facts maan]

So true John.As already noted the type of management now saddled on the ABC also burdens the health, education and transport sectors. Mostly, those on air presenters and their producers who can adapt to the current management style or lack of it get to live another day.
Sadly for me it has come to listening to RN AM and then switching to ABC News Radio, mainly because I do not want to hear dull and safe analysis. It is increasingly difficult to avoid the determined mediocrity that the ABC seems determined to present and which it calls mainstream. I think the flight to mediocrity is a poor response to lack of leadership and risk taking.
And what is this program on Howard all about? So far nothing we didn't already know, but it is being presented in a moral vacuum in a superficial, sloppy and half baked format.
Bruce Haigh

Nothing new under the sun - we, the older generations are eagerly sidelined by the newer generations who are saying in their own way, "hurry up, this world is not yours any more, time to vacate it and leave it to us".

I am not surprised to read this article of outrage over the axing of a predominately ‘right’ concern was first published in the "Australian”. Hardly a bastion of reasoned independence or representative of the public's reality. Like most commercial media it's focus is on profits that unbiased analysis.

Notwithstanding this there maybe an argument to maintain a core of programs however the wholesale name calling attack on the ABC is poor journalism and thinly disguised ideological rant. The pejoratively intentioned label “post modern” is a means of avoiding uncomfortable/unfavourable analysis while enabling root and branch without reasoning. An extension of the age old left/right antipathetic power struggle that the conservative have with the ‘pervasive lefties conspirators’ who make up the ABC.

Definition: Leftie etc is anyone who doesn’t agree with the “business is best” mantra of the “right”. Reality dictates that neither side has a monopoly on good sense or the public.

Ironically one could prognosticate that the root cause is most likely due to the line-up of political board appointees and political interference be that overt or simply financial hobbling.
What seems to be missing is any recognition of:
• The fact that the public doesn’t come in only two flavours the ‘Right’ or the wrong one.
• That the ‘for profit media’ isn’t satisfying public needs as well as it thinks it is or wants to.
• That the ABC is there to offer alternative perspectives. Shock horror that many Australians harbour ‘leftist’ views, what is this country coming too?
• That the culture has changed and left/right stance is no longer representative of the public.
This article doesn’t present reasoned arguments that are meaningful to the public. in short "More heat than light."