It was good that the ABC won the Foreign Affairs tender to continue operating Australia's international TV service. Perhaps inevitably, it is much more like SBS than the ABC.
ABC management should also be praised for refusing to accept a Foreign Affairs tender requirement that the government be able to censor and add content. While it is alarming that any such requirement should ever be made, at least it was forced to be withdrawn.
Ideally, Asia Pacific TV should not carry any advertising or have any sponsorship. The claim is that since Asia Pacific TV has its own management structure, it is separate from the ABC, so its paid advertising is not a breach of the ABC Act. It is a weak argument.
Its forerunner, Australia TV, was established by the ABC in 1992, but was sold to Channel 7 in July 1997 pursuant to one of the recommendations of the Mansfield Review (established to justify Howard's 1996 Budget butchery). Contrary to Senator Alston's expectation, and no doubt contrary to the ideological position of the IPA and other Hard Right lobby organisations, Channel 7 provided a costlier but poorer service.