//Yes, Toni, the SBS has good documentaries but, like the ABC, its opinions are well to one side.//

Yeah, I know. The documentaries I watch are nearly always pro-science. I can see why that would upset you.

//I find Australian comedy about as funny as a shark attack.//

What, even The Micallef P(r)ogram(me)? Some people just have no sense of humour.

//Give me the Poms any day.//

Yeah, they're all on the ABC as well. In some ways, it might be more accurate to call it BBC-Aus or something. I don't mind if the ABC are the ones that are importing British programs, because the commercials channels won't and if the ABC don't then I'll miss out on my Doctor Who and QI and WILTY and everything.

Then there is "Eggheads" and "Clarke and Dawe", both on my 'Don't miss' list.

Wow, just Wow. After 25 years of ABC only, they drove me away.

In my experience ABC drama is all to a formula.

Drama they shout a lot, or look meaningfully directly into the camera.

Serious drama, they shout more & louder.

Comedy, stupid people doing stupid things, with canned laughter fed in regularly so you know which bit was funny.

I'm damned if I know how anyone can watch it. I once tried 10 minutes of the highly acclaimed "Brideshead Revisited", & have never been back to the rubbish again. I finally abandoned their ABC totally when even Catalyst started brainwashing rubbish.

I do agree that much commercial stuff is no better, but it couldn't actually be worse. I( spend much of my time on the computer, so don't really know. Yes SBS have cornered the good documentaries that once were ABC territory, & I do watch them. However it is only because they can use our money to outbid the commercials they get the stuff. Get rid of public funding, & the commercials would pick up the same stuff.

Their radio is even worse. Their not very bright presenters thinking they are cunningly slipping brainwashing into everything is almost funny for a little while, but really boring long term.

Onya Toni. You can't keep the nastiness out even when someone agrees with with you. The bias I spoke of in the SBS was is the same political bias of the ABC. And, I don't watch dreary documentaries about science and climate change. I like interesting things that are not actually opinion pieces about the climate, by rent-seekers.

And some incomprehensible mumbling about Shaun McAyliffe and no sense of humour? That's funny in itself. Most of what passes for Australian humour is played to a bunch of dimly lit, pimply youths, who laugh themselves silly every time the 'comic' uses the copulation word to cover his/her lack of talent and decent material.

Dip you left eye in cocky poop, you miserable grouch.

"Most of what passes for Australian humour is played to a bunch of dimly lit, pimply youths, who laugh themselves silly every time the 'comic' uses the copulation word to cover his/her lack of talent and decent material"

True.

It never ceases to amaze me that people complain about a taxpayer funded broadcaster that is subject to continual scrutiny for bias and distortion but overlook the fact that the so-called "free-to-air" option (which costs both taxpayers and consumers much more to finance) remains totally immune to the same allegations.

Private broadcasters are entirely motivated by self-interest - commercial and economic and thus political - and when complaints arise, those are effectively investigated by themselves.

Go ahead and get all your information filtered down from the requirements of corporate moguls and supported by bogus "think tanks" and astro-turf support groups but don't try to suggest that you are completely informed.

Let the multitude of shock-jocks or the Sunrise Cash-Cow do your thinking for you.

In the end public broadcasters are there just to sell you stuff and make money for themselves.