Australia has a unique public broadcasting system. Unlike nearly all others it restricts advertisements to self-promotion in the case of the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal and to top or tail advertisements in the case of SBS.
Earlier this week, suggestions were made that advertisements be allowed on the ABC to help the Government make up its promised cut in $8 billion in public spending. It would seem perverse, that after four decades of television and more in radio that advertisements were needed to keep the ABC afloat. The ABC and Australia have been through far worse economic times than at present yet remained advertisement-free. The suggestion to put advertisements on ABC says more about ideology and values of government than tough economic times.
Advertisements would not help a great deal. They might make about $30 million in a total ABC expenditure of $500 million. Advertisers are not interested in paying huge amounts of money for time slots in programs without huge audience reach. To take advertisements … either in general or as top and tail only … would result in little money for the huge non-financial loss of uninterrupted quality programming.
Some commentators, such as former chair David Hill, say there would be a danger in editorial independence being compromised by advertisements. That danger is slight compared to the other commercial imperative: the temptation to change programming to appeal to mass tastes which constitute the markets of high-paying advertisers.
If it has advertisements, there is no point in having an ABC. Perhaps it is just as well that advertisements would require a change in the law and therefore Senate approval.