I would like to interrupt my travel reports for a short post to say thank you to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
Over the past month and a half I have driven through some remote areas of Australia, which are very sparsely populated. The only radio station that I could receive was ABC on the AM band. I assume that it simply doesn't make sense for a commercial station to operate out there; the audience is not big enough for advertisers to invest in.
This is why I got very upset when the Australian Government announced that it will cut $250 million from the ABC's budget. The argument is that this cut can be covered with efficiencies, rather than programming cuts. If that is the case, why don't they sack the current ABC management for running the corporation so inefficiently at the moment? Even if it was the case that there are possible efficiencies to free up money I'd rather see that money re-invested in programming instead of giving it back to general budget.
You see, the problem with measuring culture and public services purely by return on investment is that the first population groups and art forms that will suffer from the cuts will be those on the fringe. Only supporting the main stream greatly reduces diversity. All the little voices will disappear until we can only hear the shouting of the masses marching in lock step behind the opinion makers. We don't need to go too far back in history to see how that ends.
Anyway, thank you ABC for keeping me company on my travels!
Over the past month and a half I have driven through some remote areas of Australia, which are very sparsely populated. The only radio station that I could receive was ABC on the AM band. I assume that it simply doesn't make sense for a commercial station to operate out there; the audience is not big enough for advertisers to invest in.
This is why I got very upset when the Australian Government announced that it will cut $250 million from the ABC's budget. The argument is that this cut can be covered with efficiencies, rather than programming cuts. If that is the case, why don't they sack the current ABC management for running the corporation so inefficiently at the moment? Even if it was the case that there are possible efficiencies to free up money I'd rather see that money re-invested in programming instead of giving it back to general budget.
You see, the problem with measuring culture and public services purely by return on investment is that the first population groups and art forms that will suffer from the cuts will be those on the fringe. Only supporting the main stream greatly reduces diversity. All the little voices will disappear until we can only hear the shouting of the masses marching in lock step behind the opinion makers. We don't need to go too far back in history to see how that ends.
Anyway, thank you ABC for keeping me company on my travels!
There's a high profile publicposition about to become vacant Urs. Would you care for a career in politics?
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