Leo, you are welcome to join the Friends of the ABC and help them make those important points to the government, which is responsible for passing on the taxpayers' funds to the ABC.

The ABC once had five orchestras and several children’s radio and television programs some 25 years ago. ABC television led the field in Australian drama -- so much so that a minimum Australian content quota was required of commercial stations. Now, because of drastic budget cutting by successive governments, the ABC itself falls below that quota, and SBS has been forced to breach its charter of independence by taking advertisements to supplement its paltry government funding.

Investigative journalist Chris Masters (Four Corners) was guest speaker at the FABC's annual general meeting on 11 December 2009. He stressed the importance of an independent broadcaster in fighting corruption. Last year's guest speaker was veteran actor Terry Norris, who gave a performer's perspective of the ABC. I will quote from the 2008 minutes, Leo, and you will see how closely his thoughts match yours:

"Terry spoke of the hive of creative activity, training and nurturing of talent that had disappeared from the ABC with the erosion of its funds over many years. He stressed that the ABC Charter must be foremost, and expressed concern that, while the desire for quality programming has never been greater, the ABC's inability to identify and focus on its core audience had resulted in a chase for ratings and ABC local radio wandering into commercial radio territory.

"Terry urged supporters of the ABC to hold the Labor Government to the ALP's platform commitment to provide adequate triennial funding for the ABC to deliver quality public broadcasting services, including substantial levels of Australian content."

The shocking situation with regard to the ABC's battle to maintain even minimum standards against commercial interests which see free-to-air broadcasting as unfair competition, and those on its Howard-stacked board who agree with them, is revealed on the FABC's website -- www.fabc.org.au. If you truly care about the ABC, join its Friends and fight to save your public national broadcaster.

Thanks Polly Flinders.

<< The shocking situation with regard to the ABC's battle to maintain even minimum standards against commercial interests which see free-to-air broadcasting as unfair competition, and those on its Howard-stacked board who agree with them... >>

I'd been meaning to point those facts out in response to this woeful article, but hadn't got around to it yet. To return to its formerly very high standards, the ABC needs to be wholly funded by government and at a substantially higher level than it is currently, after years of neglect that started with Keating and were exacerbated by Howard.

Even in its shadow of its former glory, 'our' ABC is by far the premier media organisation in Australia. However, particularly lately, that's not saying much for what else is on offer.

I think that SBS has the best Australian content these days. After 12 years of underfunding the ABC is just a shell of its former self. I wouldn't rely on the commercial media for any news stories.

As for Ben's story, I am sure the ABC is much less biased than Quadrant which hosted his article originally.

Anyone who comes with in a bulls roar of Quadrant and the other bunch CIS and it doppelgangers is as about as credible as Ackerman

"Anyone who comes with in a bulls roar of Quadrant and the other bunch CIS and it doppelgangers is as about as credible as Ackerman"
-John Ryan
Oh take that comment back this instant John!
Even Akerman has WAY more credibility than this guy!

But I do suppose the author DOES have a point about junk shows- after all it DID air "The Great Global Warming Swindle" to prove how "fair and balanced" it is.

Besides, as already said, you can take your average ABC program like... Play School, compare it to every show produced by any of our other channels (hell, even the overseas shows they actually got licenses to show) and find that even with the poor quality, they STILL blow the rest of these abominations out of the water.
Not to mention it's the only channel with home improvement shows that aren't aimed at talentless mugs.

I don't care if Quadrant, commercial radio or Green Monthly is biased - that's the whole point, they respond to the people in their demographic who want that product and are prepared to prop it up out of their own pockets.

The ABC is PUBLICLY funded and it is a p*ss weak defence to compare it to privately funded media. They can't exist nor should they without public funding, so they should be more balanced in their output.

If there is not enough privately funded left wing politically correct media for you, then do something about it - don't expect taxpayers to pick up the tab for your prejudices.

The ABC board has little or no effect on the day to day prattling of the staff, they set general and broad policy, that's all.

If you think they're balanced as to left/right political views, please name all the conservative announcers who balance out all the left leaning Fains (Jon) of this world and that twit from Sydney, who got caught making fun of Senator Joyce - regardless of Joyce's opinion, that compere summed up the ABC's respect of the conservative side of Australia. Senator Joyce is an elected government official, and yet even Media Watch tried to cover up the blatant bias of their staff member. What a farce that was, quickly forgotten by the PC brigade of course.

I heard some afternoon commentator the other day, when challenged, suddenly said she was not allowed to express an opinion, after blagging on with her own rabid opinion for 5 minutes - what a dill.

I don't mind if they want to have people like that, but let's have some PUBLICLY FUNDED balance, so we get our money's worth as well, would that be fair?

So let's get the ABC to employ as many conservative people as non conservative, probably be while before that happens as there are so few conservatives in media anyway, the same few are constantly named I notice, as they are the only ones.