Chapter Two

Background

2.1        This chapter provides an overview of key background issues relevant to the inquiry into recent ABC programming decisions. Firstly it covers the history of ABC reviews which are part of the ongoing process of evaluating the function and responsibilities of Australia's major public broadcaster. It then details the role the ABC Charter has in helping to steer the ABC's course as a national broadcaster.

Background to ABC reviews

2.2        Over the past three decades the ABC has been the focus of several reviews which have helped to define the ABC's role at pivotal moments in the history of Australian broadcasting.

2.3        The 1981 Dix Review resulted in the creation of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act 1983 and the formation of the ABC Charter, which is discussed at paragraph 2.9 below. Since this time the ABC Charter has been viewed as the central document determining the responsibilities and function of the ABC as a national public broadcaster. The Charter has provided the Corporation, the government and the Australian public with a clear sense of the ABC's role in providing a high standard of broadcasting services. Accordingly, the Charter has been repeatedly referred to in submissions to this Senate inquiry by members of the public, media and community organisations. The relevance of the Charter to the current inquiry is discussed below.

2.4        In 1994 the Palmer Inquiry was initiated by the ABC Board as a result of allegations of outside influence on ABC program content. The ABC Annual Report 1994–95 states:

Nineteen allegations of outside influence on ABC program content were investigated. Six of these allegations had been raised on the Sunday program on Channel Nine in September. Thirteen others were subsequently raised by ABC staff. Four programs were found to have been influenced by outside financial contributions – Export Australia, Holiday (Series One), Home Show (Series Four) and ABC Sport Australia Awards.

After careful consideration of his [Mr Palmer's] report, the Board took action to ensure policies and procedures were reviewed and areas of deficiency rectified. The Board ruled that co-produced programs of the kind investigated should be abandoned as they 'had demonstrated unacceptable risks to program independence'.[1]

2.5        Subsequently, a Senate Select Committee on ABC Management and Operations was established in late 1994 with broad ranging terms of reference. Amongst other issues the Senate Select inquiry addressed the operational goals and direction of the ABC, budget funding, the ABC's increased dependence on external funding and subsequent impact on editorial independence. The 1995 report Our ABC made 23 recommendations including recommending amendments to editorial guidelines, commissioning 'regular audits on the impact of external funding on program selection' and, significantly, that 'the Board should reverse the current trend towards the concentration of ABC activities in Sydney'.[2]

2.6        As a point of comparison, 96 submissions were received by the Senate Select inquiry, in contrast to the 335 submissions which were received by the current inquiry, with an additional 68 form letters. 

2.7        Two years later, the Mansfield Review (1997) focused on funding, and confirmed the need for an independent ABC.[3]

2.8        On 16 October 2008, the Government released a discussion paper, ABC and SBS: Towards a Digital Future.[4]

2.9        The paper formed the basis of a public consultation and review of the operations of the two national broadcasters, and covered such topics as harnessing new technologies to deliver services, education, skills and productivity and efficient delivery of services, alongside discussion of the broadcasters’ core role in informing, educating and entertaining audiences and reflecting Australia’s cultural diversity. Views were sought from all Australians and over 2000 submissions were received and considered.

2.10      The review resulted in the publication on 12 May 2009 of the Government’s response, Strengthening our National Broadcasters.[5] The findings reflected in this paper about the under-resourcing of the national broadcasters during the previous decade underpinned the Government’s decision to grant significant funding increases to the ABC and SBS in that year’s triennial funding round.  The ABC was particularly successful, gaining the largest funding increase since its incorporation in 1983 of $150 million over three years from 2009–10.[6]

2.11      This review of the national broadcasters was undertaken to inform the incoming Government of the current state of play (2008–09) in regard to the triennial funding needs of the ABC and SBS, and has continued to inform the Government’s approach to funding and supporting the national broadcasters.

2.12      Broader issues surrounding the role of the national broadcasters, and the pressures facing the ABC (and SBS) in the contemporary media marketplace, are currently under consideration by the Convergence Review committee, which will hand its report to Government by the end of March 2012, in time for the finalisation of the next triennial funding round in the context of the 2012–13 Budget. On 6 July 2011 the convergence review committee released the Convergence Review Emerging Issues Paper and on 19 September 2011 the convergence review committee released five detailed discussion papers. This review:

...was formed to examine the changes in media and communications caused by the convergence of older technologies such as television with the internet. Recent changes in online communications are having profound effects on businesses, consumers and governments. New revenue models are emerging; consumers are adopting different technologies for entertainment, work and communication; and governments are recognising that regulations designed for an analog era need review.[7]

The ABC Charter

2.13      The ABC Charter is set out in section 6 of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act 1983. Since being passed by Parliament in 1983 the Charter has not been substantively amended.[8]

2.14      Despite not being listed as a formal term of reference, the ABC's ongoing commitment to its Charter has been raised as a relevant matter in the current inquiry into ABC programming decisions.

2.15      There are five key Charter responsibilities which are relevant to this current inquiry. The ABC is to:

• provide innovative and comprehensive broadcasting services of a high standard;
• provide programs that contribute to a sense of national identity and inform and entertain;
• provide programs that reflect the cultural diversity of the Australian community. This is often taken to mean that the ABC will represent small-interest groups as well as represent regional interests;
• encourage and promote the arts, including musical, dramatic and other performing arts by programming decisions; and
• provide a balance between programs of wide appeal with programs of a specialised nature.[9]

2.16      The full ABC Charter is reproduced at Appendix 3.

2.17      The ability of the ABC to meet its Charter commitments has been questioned by some submitters in light of current decisions to outsource some programs. This is due to the belief that independent producers remain interested in on-selling commercial products after the first-run ABC rights have expired, and that they will not prioritise the production of specialist programs for small-interest groups which the ABC has typically produced in the past. For example, former staff-elected director on the ABC Board from 1988–92, Mr John Cleary commented that:

Commercial co-producers generally make their profits from securing the rights to on-sell the finished product into other markets after the initial screening with the public broadcaster. For the co-producer to secure a profit the production needs to be commercially attractive, that is attractive to the widest possible audience. If the production fails in the market place the commercial producer will go out of business. Hence the pressure exerted by the commercial partner to make the programme fit commercially successful templates can be extraordinarily strong.[10]

2.18      The submission from the Perth International Arts Festival focused on the debate on the ABC's Charter commitments from the perspective of arts programs:

As the authors of the charter well knew, the arts, which by their very nature, do not have mass appeal and will not be picked up and promoted by commercial broadcasters, are an integral part of the Australian community, playing a massive, but often intangible (in terms of dollars, anyway) role in promoting communities, bringing people together, inspiring learning and achievement and firing imaginations.[11]

2.19      When looking at these issues in light of recent programming decisions by the ABC to cut the number and amount of ABC-produced programs, the committee notes that the Charter was written in the early 1980s when current issues such as multi‑channelling and out-sourcing production were not applicable to broadcasting.

2.20      Therefore the issue of out-sourced program production was not pertinent at the time the Charter was written and therefore there are no requirements in the Charter for the ABC to produce programs internally. Equally, there is no requirement in the ABC Charter to co-produce programs. A number of submissions have specifically stated that co-productions do not breach the Charter and further, that the ABC retains editorial control in the programs it commissions from external production companies. For example, the Screen Producers Association of Australia submitted:

The ABC charter says that the ABC is required “to provide within Australia innovative and comprehensive broadcasting services”. Nowhere in the charter is there a mandate for the ABC to create, produce, and own content. The ABC’s primary purpose is to broadcast as a user of rights, rather than a creator or owner of rights. Throughout its history, the ABC has broadcast program content from a variety of sources, including programs acquired on completion from external producers in Australia and overseas, programs made entirely internally at the ABC, programs commissioned entirely from independent Australian producers and programs made with a mixture of internal and external resources and personnel. The recent management decision does not represent a significant departure from past practice and does not in any way violate the charter.[12]

2.21      This view was supported by the South Australian Film Corporation:

The ABC’s core business is broadcasting – rather than those activities that have supported its broadcasting role (such as internal production and the provision of production facilities) – and it has a responsibility to maximise its resources to ensure that it is able to broadcast the greatest quantity of quality Australian programs that fit its charter.[13]

2.22      A wider issue is at stake in the current debate over out-sourced production. This concerns the responsibilities and functions the ABC has as a public broadcaster of program content (which involves transmitting internal content, co-productions as well as content purchased from national or international sources) or a public producer of content.[14] Tension over this issue is at the heart of much of the evidence received by the committee and is discussed in chapter 3.

Committee comment

2.23      Whilst accepting that the Charter does not stipulate the function of the ABC as being a producer of content and that there are real economic pressures facing the ABC to meet multi-channelling needs, the committee notes that the Charter obligation to reflect the cultural diversity of the Australian community is partially achieved by the ABC maintaining production units in state capitals across Australia. In this regard the committee finds the comments raised in the submission of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance persuasive:

In fulfilling [national identity and cultural diversity obligation of the Charter] the ABC has long established TV production units in all State capitals including Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Hobart. Given the concentration of the commercial and independent production industry in Sydney and Melbourne, the production of broadcast material by the ABC TV units in Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Hobart, have been particularly important in ensuring an industrial base in cities outside of these two cities, and supporting the development and production of broadcast material with perspectives and viewpoints created from across the country.[15]

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