On the 11th of February, Michael Duffy (compere of the Radio National's Counterpoint programme) wrote an article calling in essence for a shrinking of the ABC to serve only those areas supposedly neglected by the commercial operators, but also with a suggestion that the ABC to be expected to earn some of its funding from paid advertising. Paid advertising on the ABC is currently being praised by a number of Right commentators.
It was most pleasing to read an article by Errol Simper in The Australian on the 16th expressing strong opposition to Michael Duffy's suggestions.
PRESS RELEASE 12th Feb 06 41
WA Friends of the ABC condemns Michael Duffy's view that the ABC should carry paid advertising ("Go back to the drawing board, Aunty", SMH, 11th of February). It seems to be part of a softening-up process by the Howard Government, in the context of the recent KPMG Review and the Triennial Funding Submission, to force paid advertising onto the ABC.
Paid advertising won't help. How can it? Aunty sensibly needs an extra $83 million each year. The TV advertising market is flat, SBS was working hard to get additional $5 million over 2005, the commercials won't want a competitor, sponsorship would affect the type of programme to be broadcast, and going for paid advertising would drive away the ABC's audience.
Further, the Palmer Inquiry into abuses of commercial practices within the ABC in the 1990s revealed that editorial guidelines on their own won't protect ABC programming and editorial content from damaging commercial influences.
However, we welcome his frankness in other matters. Ideally, as The Editor-in-chief of The Australian has written: "DELIVERING basic services such as education, health and justice to the community efficiently and effectively is the raison d'etre of government. Australians are entitled to expect their governments, lavishly cashed up with GST revenue and - at least until very recently - reaping the rewards of a long-running housing boom, to direct all their efforts towards boosting their performance on these fundamentals."
Michael Duffy's view that "…. as public services have been run down in other areas, such as health and education, a two-tier system has emerged where the rich turn to superior private services while the masses are stuck with the shoddy public ones" endorses the widely-held view that the Howard Government is not interested in maintaining efficient and effective public services.
By agreeing that " … reduced ABC budgets have brought most local program-making to a halt", Michael endorses another view of the WA Friends that the ABC's funding is now too low for it to meet its Charter requirements. Much better government funding really is the only solution.
It is of course absurd for Mr Duffy to criticise as "middle-class welfare" an institution that attracts 86% of adult listeners and viewers sometime during a typical week, despite lack of funds. Notwithstanding their supposed dislike of middle-class welfare, the Liberal Party was happy enough to pocket $17.9 million in public funding for the 2004 Federal election. Australian Council of Social Service president Andrew McCallum has observed that the Federal Government is wasting $11 billion on a range of concessions and tax breaks on schemes like the seniors' concessions allowance and childcare and private health insurance rebates that primarily benefit people that are well-off - i.e. middle-class welfare.
In fairness, it should be acknowledged that cuts made by the Howard Government in its first year were later restored, so while proper funding is the responsibility of the government of today, the ABC's difficult financial position also arises from consistent cuts by the Hawke and Keating Labor governments.
One market failure of the 2000s is probably worse than it was in the 1930s - an unhealthy focus on cutting costs and maximising income. Cost cutting limits the capacity of journalists to investigate and report, and favours the use of syndicated material. Maximising income tends to promote the mix of editorial content with advertisements or product promotion-so-called 'advertorial' - particularly prevalent in print and television magazine content. It also means excluding poorer consumers - they don't have money. All too often, the result is news written for a twelve-year-old, while with radio or TV good programmes may be dropped because they rate well only with the over-40s.
For Michael Duffy to talk about commercials as an important source of information also demonstrates how alien are the values of the Hard Right that he represents, from the "educated middle class around Australia". Many studies clearly show that much promotional material is misleading, yet the attitudes of doctors (exceptionally well-educated, albeit in one discipline) are much more influenced by promotion than they realise. Has Michael forgotten the billions spent on the drama over the Y2K bug that wasn't?
A contrary - non-secular - position is that of the (Catholic) Pontifical Council for Social Communications:
"We disagree with the assertion that advertising simply mirrors the attitudes and values of the surrounding culture. …. Advertisers are selective about the values and attitudes to be fostered and encouraged, promoting some while ignoring others. This selectivity gives the lie to the notion that advertising does no more than reflect the surrounding culture. For example, the absence from advertising of certain racial and ethnic groups in some multi-racial or multi-ethnic societies can help to create problems of image and identity, especially among those neglected, and the almost inevitable impression in commercial advertising that an abundance of possessions leads to happiness and fulfillment can be both misleading and frustrating."
A lack of paid advertising makes the ABC very popular for several reasons:
- Product placement - in which advertiser's products and service is represented in a positive way (e.g. toy-linked TV series aimed at exploiting children) - is now being very actively pushed, which must affect not just the advertising going with such programming, but the choice of programmes as well. Such advertising has got to be subtle and manipulative to be effective.
- advertising too often works by making people unhappy, anxious and unsatisfied, in order to present a glamorised product in an unrealistic setting as being the answer to a 'problem' that the advertising itself may have sought to create.
- Advertising poses particular problems for children, in that:
- the child has to be able to recognise that the seller will engage in trickery, exaggeration, and manipulation in order to sell, with little regard to the impact on the child.
- they are induced by the advertising to pressure their parents into spending money that the family may not be able to afford, on products that may be of little benefit or may even be harmful.
- advertising of fatty, salty, sugary and fast foods often causes children a range of health problems.
Michael's flattering views of commercial television seem not to be shared by the audiences themselves. A Newspoll survey of June last year showed that 80% of Australians surveyed perceived the quality of programming on ABC Television as being good - up from 75% since 1998. With more funding it would certainly be better - but Michael Duffy can hardly afford to endorse such an inconvenient conclusion.