Media ownership changes behind "bias" attack on ABC

by Peter Mac

In a shock announcement last week, Federal Communications Minister, Richard 
Alston, threatened to cut ABC funding because of the ABC News and Current 
Affairs section's "biased and anti-American" stance, as evident (he said) 
in AM radio program's coverage of the Iraqi war. His statements have 
serious implications for the future of the ABC, and for the future of 
public broadcasting in Australia, but there's more to his outburst than 
meets the eye.

Alston offered 68 examples of alleged bias. He demanded that ABC management 
investigate the issue, and that Max Uechtritz, director of ABC news and 
current events, supply a list of staff directives before and during the 
war.

Referring to ABC management, he declared that "They are accountable to 
government in the same way any other organisation is, but if they choose to 
ignore it then it is a matter for the parliament. If the parliament thinks 
they have lost the plot they could be defunded."

Liberal Party accusations of bias are not new. Prime Minister Howard was 
incensed over the Lateline coverage of the refugee issue, and the incisive 
questioning of the government's policies on programs such as the 7.30 
Report and Four Corners has often enraged the Liberals.

Mind you, the 7.30 Report buckled after the war began, and joined 
the commercial channels with a cavalcade of military experts intent on 
analysing how best to "get the job done" for the White House. The 
"criticisms" offered by the AM program seem trivial, but even they are 
obviously excessive for Alston, who appears to prefer an absolutely 
subservient national broadcaster.

Alston's "bias" outburst revealed not only his deep resentment of the 
principle of ABC independence, but also his barely-concealed hatred of 
Uechtritz, and to some extent of AM's compere, Linda Mottram.

The blunt-talking Uechtritz incurred the enmity of the Howard Government 
for his courageous and outspoken opposition to the extremely destructive 
policies of former ABC Managing Director Jonathan Shier, a favourite 
Liberal appointee.

The Greens leader Bob Brown said that any inquiry into the ABC should be 
broadened to include the commercial media's reporting of the news. He 
warned the Liberals that if they want a national broadcaster that is "pro-
American rather than Australian and unbiased" they would have a fight on 
their hands.

The ALP's Shadow Minister for Communications, Lindsay Tanner, called on ABC 
staff to stand firm against the government's tactics. "The Howard 
government wants to turn the ABC into a Liberal Party propaganda arm. 
Journalists and management at the ABC should resist this brazen attempt to 
intimidate the ABC complying with the Liberal Party's political 
objectives", he said.

ABC management has agreed to investigate the Minister's allegations. Behind 
his "bias" outburst is a strong desire to destroy the ABC as a not-for-
profit public broadcaster. It is also a smokescreen to cover his appalling 
performance in the development of digital TV services, which has now been 
seriously set back by Alston's ministerial blundering.

The expansion of digital TV is crucial to the Government's plans to 
establish a broadcasting regime in which one or two huge corporations could 
dominate the media.

The existing cross-media ownership laws prevent a broadcasting corporation 
from owning a major newspaper and TV station in the same licence area, and 
proscribe cross-ownership between TV and radio. They also limit foreign 
investors to a 15 percent holding in free-to-air TV, 20 percent in pay TV, 
and 25 percent in major newspapers.

Changes that the Howard Government want to make to these laws would enable 
media barons, particularly local magnates such as Kerry Packer, to expand 
their media empire.

Digital agenda

Moreover, the existing laws were passed in 1997, and do not apply to new 
types of media such as subscription TV, data casting, Internet media or 
telecommunications. A corporation that converted entirely to digital 
broadcasting would therefore bypass the existing rules.

However, it's not quite that simple. Although digital TV offers viewers 
widescreen and high clarity, the equipment necessary to receive digital 
broadcasts is far more expensive than conventional TV sets.

There is therefore a great deal of public resistance to converting all 
free-to-air TV broadcasting to digital. And so far the only organisations 
to utilise digital broadcasting have been Foxtel Pay TV, the SBS World News 
Service, and the ABC children's programs Fly TV and ABC Kids (which were 
also available on pay TV).

After all, no free-to-air broadcaster would want to risk the huge cost of 
installing a new broadcasting system that might well prove a dead duck, 
commercially speaking.

Although Alston was initially opposed to the ABC or SBS entering the 
digital broadcasting arena, he soon came to realise that their presence 
would act as an incentive to the commercial broadcasters to follow their 
lead, and for viewers to purchase digital equipment.

He even argued that the ABC and SBS should be exempt from spectrum laws 
because they had a "special role to play in the national take-up of digital 
broadcasting by consumers". (From July onwards, broadcasters will be 
required to transfer their digital broadcasts to a different frequency, 
within a specially allocated spectrum.)

However, Alston seriously jeopardised the process of converting 
conventional broadcasting to digital by his obdurate and arrogant attitude 
to ABC funding.

The 1996/97 ABC budget funding suffered a $55 million cut that was never 
made good, and the cuts have continued. The ABC Kids Online program alone 
lost $66 million in funding recently.

Now the organisation faces steep increases in superannuation costs, some 
$17 million in retrenchment payouts to staff laid off during Shier's 
disastrous period in office, and the termination in 2005 of the current $18 
million in funding for special projects.

Despite warnings that programs would have to be cut unless funding 
increased by $250 million, Alston insisted that the ABC simply economise as 
best it could.

Two weeks ago he was advised by the Board that they would soon implement 
cuts. Apparently quite content to see the national broadcaster suffering 
progressive cuts to oblivion, he merely asked whether they intended to make 
an announcement immediately, and didn't bother to check the specific 
programs effected.

Last week he discovered to his horror that it was the digital service that 
was to be chopped.

At the Parliamentary budget hearings he subsequently blustered that he had 
been "ambushed" by ABC management, who had simply failed to consider 
alternative areas of potential savings.

This backfired when ABC chairman Don Macdonald (a close friend of the Prime 
Minister) confirmed that Alston had been repeatedly warned of cuts, 
including the axing of the digital service, unless more funding was 
forthcoming.

So what better way could there be to distract attention from his own 
appalling performance than to launch an attack on his pet hate, Max 
Uechtritz and ABC News and Current Affairs, on the issue of bias?

There some ironies in this whole sorry saga. One is that the retrenchment 
of staff formerly employed in the ABC children's digital programs will now 
add to the debt burden under which the organisation is labouring, thereby 
contributing to the need for further cuts. Another is that the last item 
broadcast on Fly TV was a children's interview with Prime Minister Howard, 
who bears the ultimate responsibility for the loss of the digital service.

But they do say that every cloud has a sliver lining. One beneficiary of 
Alston's attack is likely to be the AM program, whose ratings will 
probably soar because of the controversy.

The real losers, of course, will be the ABC staff thrown out of work by the 
program cuts and the Australian people, who will suffer from further loss 
of ABC programs, courtesy of Alston and the Howard Government.