The Senate inquiry into ABC operations is providing a useful public questioning of the role of the ABC _ in particular whether it should engage in pay television. More generally, other questions arise. What is the rationale of even having a public broadcaster? How should it be funded? What should be its programming philosophy? In the early days of television a fairly cumbersome system of user-pays through licences was in place. The theory was that the fees paid for government provded television infrastructure and the ABC.
Not everyone had television so why should non-users subsidise users. Before long, however, virtually everyone got television and licences were scrapped. The ABC became totally taxpayer dependent. As a result, in the 1980s, it ran into the same fiscal pressure as every other publicly funded body in the nation. In the ABC’s case, questions were asked about user-pays. The vast bulk of viewers tuned to commercial channels; why should they subsidise the very few (usually from high socio-economic groups) who watched the ABC? Questions were asked about the ABC’s efficiency and range of functions. What was it doing financing orchestras? And the ABC was pushed to become more commercial by raising more of its own money. In its defence, the ABC develped an expertise in self-promotion and self-preservation. The unfortuate consequence has been, however, that it has to some extent encouraged judgment of its functions in purely dollar terms. The famous eight-cents-a-day campaign comes to mind. The message was “”high quality service for trivial cost”. It may have had some public impact, but it did not fool government decision-makers who could quickly multiply the eight cents, the days and viewers and arrive at the $500 milllion a year bottom line _ a big ticket Budget item in any department’s language. The call for justification continued. Clearly, the ABC cannot justify itself in purely financial or technical terms. Despite a decade of debacles on the commercial side, no-one seriously challenges the proposition that the Australian private sector is technically and financially capable of putting to air (or cable) several television services, and that without the ABC Australia would still have financially viable and technically sound television services. So the subsidy has to be justified on other terms.
Two justifications are usually offered and are indeed in the ABC’s charter: that the ABC must reflect Australian culture and that it must cater to interests that are not being catered for by the commercial channels. However, these are somewhat contradictory. One appears to demand reflection of the broad Australian culture; the other caters for minorities. The conflict is reflected in the ABC’s programming dilemma: does it chase ratings, or does it aim to plug the gaps left by the commercials irrespective of the inevitable consequence of lower ratings? The danger for the ABC is that, at least technologically, the argument for a publicly funded “”gap-filler” to ensure diversity and minority and experimental programs get to air is weakened by pay TV.
With hundreds of channels available on cable and via satellite, there is, at least technically, plenty of room for diversity and minority and experimental programs. Tragically, this is purely a technical and practical possibility which has been legally and administratively barred by present government policy which is geared to giving the big players all the channels by making the entry price prohibitive for smaller players. In that flawed policy environment there will continue to be a need for a publicly funded ABC to ensure diversity, to plug the cultural gaps, to give the experimental a run, to provide programming free from commercial pressure and to provide a free core service to regional Australia which under existing policies will be excluded from pay TV for many years. So, when one looks at the sound public-policy reasons for the Australian community paying $500 million a year for the ABC they amount to: diversity, cultural gaps, core service and freedom from commercial pressure.
On any judgment they can be fulfilled without the ABC being in pay television and, indeed, some of those roles are quite inconsistent with the ABC being in pay television. If there is a clear public interest not being catered for with existing services then the remedy lies through the ABC’s or SBS’s free services. Of its nature, there can be no other avenue for it. Conversely, if something is not public-interest broadcasting, then there is no reason for public funding. It is therefore quite preposterous for taxpayers to underwrite the ABC with $12.5 million to enter the pay-TV fray _ it is a purely commercial venture, with risks attached. If the ABC is doing it for the money to cross subsidise its free-to-air function, then the Government and the ABC are going about it the wrong way. If more money is needed for the ABC’s free-to-air services then it should come out of taxpayer’s funds or through natural spin-offs from the free-to-air service, such as the passive selling of programs to other outlets (pay, commercial or overseas). It seems the ABC’s management has decided to get into pay-TV without proper public-policy reasons for doing so. The Senate inquiry, which is to report in March, is starting to expose the absence of good purpose behind the ABC’s move.
The obvious, and misguided, purpose is that ABC mangers want to be in pay TV because like managers in all bureaucratic organisations they want to expand to ensure their continued existence. Whether the expansion or, indeed, the continued existence of the organisation is warranted in the public interest to them is beside the point. But it is not beside the point for the Australian public. The role of publicly funded bodies like the ABC need periodic attention. At present the ABC’s free-to-air role appears warranted; its foray into pay TV does not.