30 November 2009Why have public broadcasters? On the grounds of equity, innovation and dealing with market failure, writes Margaret Simons in The Content Makers

I’D LIKE TO TURN to the perpetual debate, stoked most recently by Foxtel boss Kim Williams, about the place and future of taxpayer funded “broadcasters” in an age of media plenty. In his speech last week, Williams suggested that the ABC  should be funded only to do those things that the market cannot do – and that government funding for Australian content should be made available on a contestable basis, rather than simply given to the ABC and SBS. Williams’ model would see the ABC reduced, I think, to little more than Radio National and perhaps Four Corners. It would be a much tinier institution, and we all know that tiny institutions are easy to wipe out.

All this, as I suggested in this post at the time, is part of a broader battle between media that asks users to pay at the point of use, (and can therefore afford to provide high quality content to comparitively small audiences)  and free to air media, both advertising funded and taxpayer funded. Given that the advertising funded free to air mass model is basically broken by audience fragmentation, the main free to air warrior is taxpayer funded “broadcasters”.

I’ve put the word “broadcaster” in inverted commas for obvious reasons. The ABC and SBS are much more than broadcasters these days...

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