Proof will be in the pudding:

ABC chair Kim Williams has outlined his vision for a dramatic renewal of the national broadcaster, with the overhaul to be underpinned by a frank internal assessment of the relevance of the taxpayer-funded media organisation in the digital age.

Delivering the Redmond Barry Address at the State Library of Victoria on Wednesday night, Mr Williams – who assumed the role of ABC chair in early March – said the exponential growth of digital technology was threatening society’s “freedoms and our democracy”, and was presenting serious challenges for modern media companies including the ABC.

“A starting point (for the ABC) must be a greater understanding of the wants and behaviours of our audiences, and some tough assessments about whether we are fulfilling our audiences’ needs, interests and aspirations to the extent we should be,” Mr Williams said.

“How else can we be the reliable and compelling microphone and mirror to the nation?”

Mr Williams pinpointed key areas of the change that are needed at the national broadcaster, including “a renewed Radio National” to uphold the ABC’s “purpose and intellectual ambition”.

The ABC’s radio arm has experienced a sharp decline in ratings over the past two years, with Radio National’s audience slump of particular concern to management.

In his speech Mr Williams acknowledged that the ABC “must have a strong accountability framework that requires it to do better.”

“We need to be toughminded to achieve our goals and we need to measure performance reliably,” he said.

How best to achieve this new strategy?

But in controversial remarks which are sure to attract criticism Mr Williams called for an increase to the annual funding of the ABC – which currently draws about $1.1bn in taxpayer money each year – to help achieve its “renewal”.

“Of course, achieving our goals will also take something else. Something you have probably guessed. Investment,” he said.

“We all know greater investment will be needed. The ABC is an investment in Australia’s future because a revitalised ABC will be a source of great national strength.

“A great national campfire around which our stories can be told and can coalesce into a renovated national narrative about our future. A narrative able to draw all Australians a bit closer together to face up to and make sense of the disrupted times we are in.

?“Such an investment will repay itself over and over and over again.?

?“I am confident that we at the ABC can make the case for it. The budgetary outlook is tight; however the rationale is plain.”?

?Mr Williams also spoke of his serious concerns about digital disruption and the “unforeseen and insufficiently contested consequences of digital technology which abounds around us”.?

“Despite the best efforts of many in recent decades, it seems to me that the digital world has caused a fragmentation and dislocation of effort at the ABC that is failing to deliver what we need,” he said.

“It has altered the personality, chemistry and character of our national debates in sometimes, indeed often, negative ways. It is time for refreshed purpose.

“Our community and nation deserve better, renewed performance horizons.”

Speaking about the wider impacts of the dominance of the big tech companies on the media landscape, Mr Williams said: “The flow of advertising revenues to Google, Facebook and others has been relentless and devastating in its consequences … our newspapers are thinner, our newsrooms sparser, our readers and viewers and listeners fewer, to our own Australian media.

“It’s no wonder that some have stated that the decline of commercial news has now reached a critical point and is now facing even more rapid decline.

“The devastation isn’t just about revenues and audiences. It has involved an assault on the moral resources that hold our society together. Including on the qualities good media organisations offer: objectivity and truth, without which democracy becomes impossible to sustain.”

Just spitballing but maybe Mr Williams, just actually work to the charter and be impartial, don’t cheerlead for the Trot In Chief?
Start but getting rid of all the ‘talent’ right now. There’s some taxpayer cash saved.
Always someone else who foots the bill for any Left wet dream.

m0nty
June 19, 2024 8:33 pm

Reply to  132andBush

The Libs had over a decade in office to something, anything, about introducing nukes. They did nothing. That is all you need to know about the seriousness level of this policy, which is nil.

I’ll repeat my first sentence for your comprehension.

“The only reason this discussion has to be had is because your lot of gullible, ideological, grifting nut jobs have been in control of everything for way too long. Way too long.”

I am referring to BOTH colours on the political spectrum, the malignancy of the green (communist) ideology has seeped well into the LNP along with all the corruption.

The West needs Trump (or someone) to put a stop to this madness.

Anyway, it’s good to know you’re accumulating some properties, probably doing better than this humble Kulak who started with zip.
In fact you’ll probably be in front of me in line for the wall come the glorious revolution.

I think most people have figured out that wind and solar will never cut the power mustard, no matter how much arable land is destroyed and how many towns have a Giant Battery.

No, they haven’t.

I hope the southern Kats and kittens survive the polar blast today.

I may have have mentioned that I am now on Insulin. Like a good little patient, I get get my script filled in my way home from hospital. Excellent – no. I have needles and I have vials of insulin, but the idiot chemist, who asked if I had ever been on it before, “no” and doesn’t give me the delivery pen, so absolutely useless to me. I spent yesterday hunting down a chemist who actually had the delivery pen in stock.

Excellent – no. I discovered that my long lasting insulin requires a different pen. That is my task today. ( Insert many many swear words)

Whilst normally quite reasonable and patient with fools, I was a school teacher, I am at the point where I am in “tear their arms off and beat them round the head with soggy bits” mode when dealing with pharmacist , the young lasses working the counters are exempt because they are not the professionals.

In his speech Mr Williams acknowledged that the ABC “must have a strong accountability framework that requires it to do better.”

“We need to be toughminded to achieve our goals and we need to measure performance reliably,” he said.

Says the man who disappeared from view when Ms. Tingle called us racists.