The Hon Kevin Rudd, MP
Prime Minister
Parliament House
Canberra 2600

Dear Prime Minister

The ABC comes to the nation's aid in time of need. Please help the national broadcaster in its hour of desperate need.
I am encouraged to know that the Government is soon to restore the staff-elected director position and to introduce a new merit-based appointment process to the ABC Board. 
Nevertheless, I am extremely disappointed that your government's first Budget in 2008 failed to
demonstrate an appreciation of the ABC's importance as the nation's foremost
information and cultural institution, and an educator of all Australians.
ABC funding has declined out of proportion to all other major areas of government expenditure since 1985-86. The ABC is increasingly engaging in commercial activities that undermine the integrity of its programming, threaten universal access without cost to its services, and detract from the audience's experience. 
I wish to know what your government will do to:
. rebuild the ABC's capacity to produce high quality programs, so that it is no longer so dependent on outsourced production;
. ensure the national broadcaster is at the forefront in a technologically changing
media environment;
. deliver to the ABC all operational funding through the ABC's triennial base funding, to give effect to Labor's commitment to ABC independence and adequate triennial funding; 
. stop the creeping commercialisation of the ABC and extend the prohibition on advertising to all ABC websites; and ensure that services a modern public broadcaster should provide remain accessible to all Australians without fee; and
. resource the ABC so it can rebuild Radio Australia which promotes positive relations with neighbours in our region.
I look forward to your response to the matters raised, and to learning how a Labor Government will ensure our treasured ABC thrives as Australia's independent and comprehensive national public broadcaster.

Yours sincerely
Signature: Date:
Name:
Address 

ROBBING PETER TO PAY PAUL
June Factor

Sometimes, without deliberate intent, the personal becomes political. At the end of August, after listening to yet another admirable program on ABC Radio National’s The Night Air, on impulse I dashed off an email to the program makers: ‘Often radio at its most inventive and engrossing. Many thanks.’ My note could as easily have been written about Radio Eye, which has the same producer but a different focus and time slot. Six weeks later, Radio Eye turns out to be on the ABC’s elimination list, together with seven other Radio National programs (plus two left in diminished form). The Night Air has escaped. Now it’s my IN box that is full of questions, comments, and general outrage. For the record, none of these emails come from the ABC.

What could have persuaded intelligent, committed Radio National people to take an axe to valued programs on this quality network: The Media Report, Street Stories, In Conversation, The Religion Report, Perspective, Radio Eye, The Ark and The Sports Factor? (While they have ultimate responsibility, it appears that the death-list wasn’t the creation of Sue Howard, Head of ABC Radio, or of the Managing Director, Mark Scott. Nor have I seen any evidence of the involvement of the Howard-government-appointed ABC Board.)

According to the ABC’s media release on October 15, Radio National’s National Manager, Dr Jane Connors, explains: 

Decisions to wind up programs are never easy, as all of the network’s shows are made with passion and care, and each have their devoted following. The move of resources and staff, and without job losses, into the development of new content offered in new ways, including online, means ABC Radio National can respond to its hugely successful digital growth and shift in audience trends, especially amongst younger audiences.

Nobody would argue against the value of creating innovative new programs, and this must sometimes mean the loss existing ones. But neither in the media release nor anywhere else have we been provided with an explanation of why these particular eight programs are to be expunged. Nor, it seems, were all the program makers consulted about the new plans – hence the angry outburst by the presenter of The Religion Report, Stephen Crittendon, the whistle-blower who broke the rules by informing his listeners of what was afoot. Now he is suspended – but without his disclosure, how long might it have taken before the loyal ABC audience got to hear of the proposed changes?

What’s more, the actual plan, as outlined in the media release, offers only one new radio program – a replacement of The Media Report with something tentatively titled The Future Report. The rest is all rescheduling and extending the surviving programs to fill the gaps. It is impossible not to see this as a severe diminution of Radio National’s range and quality. It cannot be justified as replacing tired programs with fine fresh offerings.

As Jane Connors’ statement makes clear, the new program schedule is reduced in order to expend more money and staff resources on the ABC’s digital and online services. So, to feed one child the ABC must deprive another – for in simple truth the national public broadcaster is chronically underfunded. The money and staff lost with the Howard government’s notorious 12% funding cuts of 1996-98 have never been adequately restored, and the ever-increasing costs associated with the website - downloading, audio and video podcasting, etc - have exacerbated the ABC’s financial malnutrition.

Sadly, this deterioration in programming is merely the latest in a disturbing list which includes less Australian drama on ABC TV than the minimum required of commercial broadcasters, the destruction of specialist units such as the Natural History unit, and an obdurate preference by the Board for outsourcing television drama and documentary production. 

The desire of the ABC to enhance its internet and digital delivery systems and hence to enlarge its audience is laudable – but it must not be at the cost of the quality and diversity of ABC programs. It’s worth remembering that the Mansfield report – the review of the ABC instituted by the Howard government in 1996 in a largely unsuccessful attempt to divert public fury about funding cuts to the broadcaster – noted that ‘Radio National was the most strongly supported of all ABC networks, including ABC-TV’. According to the ABC’s current figures, the network has more than a million listeners every week. The reason that Radio National now accounts for an average 1.7 million podcasts downloaded monthly - 50% of the ABC’s total monthly podcasts – is precisely because of the quality and range of its product. 

Content is king. Diminish Radio National’s programming and the result will be a diminished audience, whether listening to the radio or via the latest technological device. For once, the editorial of The Australian, not commonly a source of support for the ABC’s core principles, got it right:

The axe falls at a time when specialist programming is more popular than ever, thanks to the internet, which gives the ABC a worldwide audience who can listen on demand. The ABC has been ahead of the pack with this new and important form of program delivery and will again lead the way with the introduction of digital terrestrial radio early next year. But where it is ahead on delivery, it is sacrificing content. The paradox of this media-abundant age is that the thirst for quality has never been greater… For the ABC to surrender this ground is an absurd and non-sensical decision. (16/10/08) 

When we add to this quite practical argument the fact that Radio National’s budget is modest (‘negligible’, in the ABC journalist Quentin Dempster’s words), the loss of eight radio programs is evidence of how truly desperate is the need for proper funding for the broadcaster. This, after all, is the context – though not the complete explanation – for the ABC’s increasing shift towards commercialising its publicly funded products. ABC material on third-party websites, ads for books, CDs and DVDs that have no direct connection with ABC programs, the growth in the ABC’s commercial arm and its influence on what is produced – these are all examples of a trend which threatens, little by little, to destroy a foundation principle of the national broadcaster: freedom from commercial content and influence.

The lack of money is not the ABC’s only problem, but it is a central one. It provides excuses for those – including Board members – who would encourage the privatisation of ABC functions and who support more commercialisation. It clouds the judgment of staff who seek to bolster one division by taking from another. It is to be hoped that the ABC will have made a powerful, compelling case for a significant funding increase to the new government. And it is essential that this government, which has expressed strong support for the ABC in its party policy and in statements from the Minister for Communications, Stephen Conroy, recognises that nothing less than substantial funding for the national public broadcaster will satisfy the Australian community.