Mark Scott responds to Murdoch's attack on public broadcasting
In a frontal attack on public service broadcasting James Murdoch has described the BBC as a threat not only to independent news but also to innovation and the growth of creative industries. Murdoch said that the existence of a government funded broadcaster was "a threat to pluralism".
Murdoch criticised the BBC for its public service concept of trying to provide something for everyone and concluded that "The only reliable, durable, and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit." The full text of his speech is available here
To his great credit ABC Managing Director lost no time in making a spirited defence of public service broadcasting and the ABC in particular. Scott said that he saw public service broadcasting as a bulwark against market failure and took issue with Murdoch's assertion that profit was reliable, durable and a guarantee of independence.
We see the ABC as Australia’s town square, a place where all Australians can come to listen and learn, to speak and to be heard. The Government has funded the ABC to create regional broadband hubs – to work with communities to help them develop local broadband content and distribute it across their communities and beyond. Again, there is no commercial provider in local markets that are too small to bring in advertising revenue ‐ and it is something the public broadcaster is uniquely equipped to deliver in this digital era.
As a public broadcaster, we must deliver for audiences where they are, not just where the profitable markets are. We have a Charter to fulfil and must deliver a service of integrity and quality.
We don’t walk away in the face of contracting profits or shareholder skittishness. One of the paradoxes of the age of plenty is that we are presented both with plenty of content, and plenty of market failure that goes with it. And it is in these increased areas of market failure that Australian citizens and Governments turn to the ABC to deliver.
The full text of Mark Scott's response is available here
