Review finds ABC needs long-term funding – which might not be what the government wanted

Extract from The Guardian

The Weekly Beast

Australian media

Amanda Meade

Report has been sitting in Mitch Fifield’s office since December. Plus: Tele attacks nine-year-olds for climate change action

Fri 19 Apr 2019 04.00 AEST Last modified on Fri 19 Apr 2019 04.08 AEST

A review of the ABC ordered by communications minister Mitch Fifield has concluded it should be funded for 10 years at a time to protect its budget. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

The ABC should be funded for 10 years at a time to allow it to modernise its infrastructure and protect it from the whims of politicians, the Coalition’s yet-to-be released efficiency review of the public broadcasters has recommended.
Giving the ABC more autonomy is probably not what the communications minister had in mind when he announced the review of the ABC and SBS, along with an $84m indexation pause, in the 2018 budget.
But the communications bureaucrat Richard Bean and the former chief executive of News Corp and Foxtel Peter Tonagh concluded the ABC needed expensive new infrastructure to keep up with rapid changes in technology, and long-term funding certainty was preferable to the current triennial funding.
The ABC has lost $393m over five years under the Coalition government.
Handed to the government in December, the secret $1m report has languished in Mitch Fifield’s office for months and may never be released if Labor wins the election.

Weekly Beast understands Tonagh and Bean suggested a more stable funding base for the ABC as well as refocusing on core public broadcasting activities in a time of budgetary restraint. That would mean more investigative journalism, Australian drama and radio and less lifestyle content such as ABC Life, a source told Beast.
The SBS Food and Viceland multi-channels also came under fire for not being core activities under the SBS charter. The ABC and SBS boards should consider where resources are being spent when budgets are stretched, the report said.
We reckon the Institute of Public Affairs’ recent call to privatise the ABC has got about as much chance as the efficiency review of being implemented.
The IPA, of which Fifield and other Liberals remain members, published its “20 policies to fix Australia” this week.

On the ABC, it says: “In a free society the government should not own and operate its own media company. The media market in Australia is highly competitive. Online platforms have transformed and disrupted traditional approaches to media. Consumers have never had more choice about where to source their news and opinions on current affairs. Moreover, the ABC is unremittingly biased. Its staff are five times more likely to vote for the Greens compared to the general population. The ABC is beyond reform. New leaders will not fix the problem, regardless of their experience or intention. The ABC must be privatised.”