When Australia’s legacy media huffed and puffed about “press freedom” this week, many readers were quick to point out their hypocrisy. Not least is the fact that, when the Gillard government tried to impose an unprecedented press regulation system, much of Australia’s media were not just shamefully silent, but actively cheered.
As Australian journalist Chris Kenny wrote, to win public support for their cause, “Journalists need to be seen to be fighting for the public, not the media”. In the case of Gillard’s proposed press overseer, the support from parts of the legacy media was motivated by sheer ideological self-interest: they were out to nobble the Murdoch press, and nothing else.
The other part of the Gillard “reforms” that appealed to the legacy media’s self-interest was the suggestion to use taxpayer’s money to fund the media.
Yet, we already have two taxpayer-funded broadcasters, guzzling down a lazy $1.3 billion dollars of public money every year. And, boy, do we get value for our billion bucks.
The ABC and SBS consistently rank at the bottom of viewer statistics. Far from “broadcasting programs that contribute to a sense of national identity” (as it is statutorily required to do), the ABC is hyper-focused on its twin bubbles of inner-Sydney and Canberra. In fact, even the “national broadcaster” realises that it is so isolated from the vast bulk of Australians that it organised a special bus tour for its employees, to find out what the Australian people think.
They went all the way to the Sydney suburb of Bankstown.
The ABC’s bus trip out to Bankstown last month to find out what the people think [has] revealed a sobering view of ABC news and current affairs coverage: that Aunty needed to “stop talking about Canberra”.
As this revelation – as stunning as it no doubt was to the ABC’s taxpayer-funded staff – shows, the ABC and the rest of Australia might as well live on different planets. If the ABC want to cling to their already-small audience, they might want to come down to Earth.
The Bankstown crowd seems to be onto something. The ABC’s annual report, released last week, shows some of Aunty’s top news and current affairs programs had a drop in viewers at a time you might least expect it: in the year leading up to a federal election.
Take the ABC’s 7PM news bulletin. Monday to Friday, its combined average audience fell 2 per cent. But it was on the weekends that it really suffered: down 8 per cent on Saturdays and 4 per cent on Sundays.
Other current affairs shows also struggled in 2018/19. For Q&A and Tony Jones, audiences fell 3 per cent to 581,000. For Four Corners, audiences were down 7 per cent. But Foreign Correspondent had the toughest time, down 9 per cent. It should be said two big programs at Aunty had ratings wins: ABC News Breakfast and 7.30. Both were up 3 per cent for the year to June.
theaustralian.com.au/business/media/morrison-jones-making-waves/
3% of bugger-all is still bugger-all. ABC News Breakfast rated barely a third of the tenth-lowest program on commercial media.
Australians fork out a billion-dollars a year for a green-left media propaganda behemoth that hardly anyone watches. The legacy media’s lofty claims to be serving the Australian people ring decidedly hollow.
