Australian Broadcasting Corporation
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| Type | Broadcast radio and television |
|---|---|
| Country | |
| Availability | National; international (via the Australia Network, Radio Australia and ABC Online) |
| Owner | Government of Australia |
Key people | Donald McDonald, Chairman; Mark Scott, General Manager |
Launch date | 1932 (radio); 1956 (television); 2001 (digital tv) |
Official website | www.abc.net.au |
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) (formerly the Australian Broadcasting Commission) is Australia's national public broadcaster. The ABC provides television, radio and online services throughout metropolitan and regional Australia, and overseas via its Asia-Pacific Television service and Radio Australia. The Corporation runs a chain of ABC Shops selling books and audio/video recordings related to its programs.
The ABC is non-commercial, and is funded almost entirely by direct annual grants from the federal budget. This is in contrast with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation/Société Radio-Canada (CBC/Radio-Canada) and public broadcasting in New Zealand, which receive substantial revenue from advertising; the US's PBS/NPR, which receives revenue almost solely from private donations; and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), which receives the bulk of its revenue from licence fees (these were abolished in Australia in 1974).
History
Funding and relationship with government
The ABC receives the vast majority of its funding from the Australian federal government, with the exception of all revenue collected through commercial sales in ABC bookstores. This is in contrast with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and public broadcasting in New Zealand, which receive substantial revenue from advertising, and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), which receives the bulk of its revenue from licence fees and worldwide commercial operations. The ABC was originally funded by a licence fee, but this was abolished in 1974.
It is closer in scope to the American Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), but backed entirely by government money rather than public donations. Because of the ABC's almost-total reliance on government funding, the broadcaster has had a complex relationship with governments.
Relations between public broadcasters and the governments that provide all or much of their funding, and establish and maintain their legal status, have typically been through periods of turbulence since the rise of current affairs and documentaries in broadcasting. Government control of the ABC besides funding is rather lax; however, the government is responsible for the appointment of people to the board of the ABC.
The ABC's treatment of current affairs—including This Day Tonight and its successors The 7.30 Report and Lateline on television, and AM on radio, have been criticised by the political right for alleged left-wing bias in its reporting. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the conservative Liberal Party government made several attempts to curtail the ABC's political coverage by threatening to reduce funding to the news and current affairs division. In the late 1980s, the Hawke Labor government proposed commercialising the ABC, a move that was successfully resisted by the organisation itself and a significant groundswell of devotees among the public. The Hawke government also proposed to merge the ABC and its sister organisation, the Special Broadcasting Service; again, this move was unsuccessful, this time because the enabling legislation failed to pass the Senate. The Howard government reduced the ABC's operating grants by 10% soon after coming to office in 1996.
Radio
The ABC began as a network of twelve radio stations: eight in the capital cities and four regional relay stations. From its humble beginnings, ABC Radio now includes five national networks, Radio National, ABC NewsRadio, Triple J, dig and ABC Classic FM; around fifty ABC Local Radio stations and a foreign language shortwave radio service, Radio Australia. The twelve original stations were:
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Capital cities:
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Relay stations:
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Radio News and Current Affairs
The ABC's news and current affairs coverage is the most independent in Australia as it is free of the commercial constraints of the commercial news networks. It is also widely regarded in the Australian media industry as the best news coverage in the country. News and current affairs programs broadcast on ABC radio stations across the country are:
- ABC Radio News (Hourly news updates on Radio National, Local Radio, Classic FM and Triple J)
- AM (Half hour-long current affairs programme broadcast on Local Radio at 8am and Radio National at 7.10am) AM website
- The World Today (50 minute-long current affairs programme broadcast on Local Radio and Radio National at 12:10pm)
- PM (50 minute-long current affairs programme broadcast on Local Radio and Radio National at 6:10pm)
- Radio National also produces other news, business & current affairs programmes, such as Background Briefing, the Health, Law, Religion and Media Reports and The National Interest.
- Hack on Triple J the only current affairs program on FM radio
ABC Local Radio
ABC Local Radio is the ABC's flagship radio station in each broadcast area. There are 46 different ABC Local Radio stations across Australia and they all follow a standard format with local hosts presenting light entertainment, talkback, music, sport and interviews. ABC Local Radio also carries nationally broadcast programming, including AM, PM, The World Today, sporting events and Nightlife. ABC's local radio stations cater for a diverse audience, but are most popular with older audiences.
ABC Radio Grandstand
"Grandstand" is the banner used for the ABC's coverage of various sporting events broadcast on ABC Local Radio. In many cases, commentators are used to call various sports and are required to have knowledge on a wide range of sports, as opposed to a specialty.
ABC Radio National
ABC Radio National can be heard across Australia and broadcasts over 60 special interest programs per week. These programs are about a diverse range of topics including music, comedy, book readings, radio dramas, poetry, science, health, the arts, religion, social history and current affairs
ABC NewsRadio
ABC NewsRadio was previously called the Parliamentary and News Network (PNN). The station was set up to broadcast Australian Federal Parliament and is similar to the BBC Parliament television channel in the UK. It was built around the Parliament's existing broadcast service. PNN was originally set up to allow other ABC Radio networks to not broadcast Parliament sittings by moving it to a dedicated channel. However, when Parliament is not sitting, the station broadcasts news on a 24/7 format with updates on the quarter hour. Most of its news comes from ABC News reporters, however it also uses the resources of BBC Radio, NPR, Deutsche Welle and CNN Radio.
Triple J
Triple J or JJJ is a national youth radio network, broadcasting new alternative music, particularly Australian music. The station's demographic is 15-25 years. Triple J was formerly known as "Double Jay" when it first hit the airwaves (as an AM station) on 19 January 1975.
dig
DiG radio broadcasts over the internet, pay TV and Digital Radio. It is not available via a standard radio on AM or FM frequency. Dig broadcasts a diverse range of music and also plays music submitted by listeners.
ABC Classic FM
ABC Classic FM was the ABC's first FM service. It was originally known simply as "ABC FM", then for a short time "ABC Fine Music". Its format borrowed heavily from community stations that eventually founded the Fine Music Network and also from BBC Radio 3.
The ABC, through ABC Classic FM has helped support the ABC owned state symphony orchestras, chamber music, instrumental recitals, opera, choral and solo singers.
Radio Australia
The ABC also operates Radio Australia, an international shortwave service with transmissions aimed at East Asia and the Pacific Islands, although its signals are also audible in many other parts of the world. It features programs in various languages spoken in these regions, including Mandarin, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Khmer, and Tok Pisin.
Radio Australia concentrates on news and current affairs, but it also features historical documentaries, information about Australian lifestyle and culture, and light entertainment. Although it does produce some of its own programming, most of the shows transmitted over Radio Australia are relays of programmes produced by the domestic Radio National network.
Radio Australia bulletins are also carried on the World Radio Network, which is available on satellite in Europe and North America.
It is of little interest to domestic Australian audiences as most of its material has already been broadcast or is broadcast simultaneously on the easier to receive domestic ABC networks.
Television
The ABC operates two nationwide television channels, ABC TV and the digital-only ABC2. In addition a separate digital network Australia Network provides commercial digital TV services into the Asia-Pacific region.
On March 7 2005, the digital-exclusive channel ABC2 was launched [1]. It is largely a combination of the ABC Kids Channel, short-format news and informaton programs and retransmission of main channel programs. It screens predominantly repeated ABC news and current affairs programs, compilations of ABC news bulletin stories with some additional reporting, children's programming, music documentaries and state football.
The Australia Network television service was launched in 2002 as ABC Asia Pacific. It is partly funded by Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), and partly by advertising. The channel is available free-to-air to East Asia and the Pacific Islands via satellite and local cable systems is also now available in South Asia and the Middle East. It can also be watched on the Internet. It is currently available in 8 million homes in more than 35 countries across the region and in more than 190,000 hotel rooms. The network screens a variety of programs, from the ABC TV itself, including tailor-made news bulletins for the region, from the other Australian terrestrial TV networks, plus Sky News and independents. It also carries state level Australian rules football and rugby league matches, such as the VFL and the Queensland Cup, and British drama series. One of its foreign affairs programs, Hemispheres, is co-produced with the CBC of Canada, and presented from both Sydney and Vancouver.
Online
An experimental Multimedia Unit was established in 1995, charged with developing policy for the ABC’s work in web publishing. This unit continued until 2000, when the New Media division was formed, aggregating the internet output from radio and TV as well as web-original material under one umbrella.
This division had over a million pages of material published by late 2003 and was instrumental in developing ABC content on other platforms such as mobile phones.
In 2003 the New Media division became New Media and Digital Services, reflecting the broader remit to develop digital platforms such as digital TV. In March 2005 the division launched the ABC2 free-to-air digital TV channel, the successor to the short-lived Fly TV and the ABC Kids Channel digital services.
In conjunction with the ABC’s radio division, New Media and Digital Services implemented the ABC’s first podcasts in December 2004. By mid-2006 the ABC had become an international leader in podcasting with over 50 podcast programs delivering hundreds of thousands of downloads per week, including trial video podcasts of The Chaser's War on Everything and JTV. Among the most notable websites are:
ABC News Online
ABC News Online has a comprehensive local news coverage of Australia, publishing stories from the ABC's 36 regional bureaux. It also provides extensive national news and international news from an Australian perspective. It provides several broadband video bulletins daily of general news as well as sport, business and rural news.
ABC Science Online
A good site, The Lab provides a gateway into the world of science, including the unique self-service science forum and the best science news from Down Under.
ABC Enterprises
ABC Enterprises is the commercial Division of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The Division is comprised of ABC Retail, ABC Consumer Publishing and Content Sales, and ABC Resource Hire. It was established in 1974 with all profits from the sale of consumer product and production services returned to the Corporation to reinvest in program-making.
It now operates over 40 retail shops and 80 centres, an international delivery service on the Internet as well as developing and licensing ABC brands and programs and providing production resource hire to the general public and industry alike.
ABC Retail
The ABC Shop Online (at http://www.abcshop.com.au) is a shopping website operated by ABC Enterprises. It sells DVDs, CDs, books, spoken word, toys, clothing, music downloads and mobile/cell phone products related to programming on ABC TV & Radio and Australian culture in general.
The ABC Shops (at http://www.abcshop.com.au) sell theatrically released products (DVDS, books, CDs, spoken word, toys and clothing) related to programs broadcast on ABC TV and Radio and related to Australian culture.
ABC Consumer Publishing & Content Sales
Develop and license products and brands related to ABC programming selling to both the general public and wholesale TV and radio markets worldwide.
ABC Resource Hire
Offer a range of productions services including costume hire, soundstage and studio facilities, venue hire and event staging.
Orchestras
In the 1920s, recording technology was still relatively primitive. All ABC programmes were broadcast live until 1935, including music. For this purpose, the ABC established broadcasting orchestras in each state, and in some centres also employed choruses and dance bands. There are currently six state symphony orchestras:
- Adelaide Symphony Orchestra
- Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
- Sydney Symphony Orchestra
- The Queensland Orchestra
- Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra
- West Australian Symphony Orchestra
The orchestras were corporatised in the 1990s but remain wholly under ABC ownership, co-ordinated by Symphony Australia. They have evolved into platform orchestras and play a major role in Australia’s culture life.
Postal address
The ABC's postal address is "[PO] Box 9994 in your Capital city" followed by the postcode.
There is a persistent urban legend that '9994' is in memory of the life-time Test cricket batting average of the Australian cricketer Sir Donald Bradman (he scored 6996 runs in 70 completed innings, an average of 99.94 runs per innings). Supposedly, Sir Charles Moses, a long time managing director of the ABC and personal friend of Bradman's, arranged for this number to be used. The story has been denied by the ABC, and in fact the ABC was not assigned the postal address until after Moses' successor, Sir Talbot Duckmanton had retired. p8
The ABC's national phone enquiry service also has the number 139994.
Senior management
General Managers
- Sir Charles Moses (1935–1965)
- Sir Talbot Duckmanton (1965–1982)
- Geoffrey Whitehead (1983–1986)
- David Hill (1986–1994)
- Brian Johns (1994–1999 )
- Jonathan Shier (1999–2002)
- Russell Balding (2002–2006)
- Mark Scott (2006–present)
Chairmen
- Sir Richard Boyer (1945-61)
- Ken Myer
- David Hill (?–1986)
- Bob Somervaille
- Mark Armstrong
- Donald McDonald (1996–present)
References
- The Alan McGillivray Solution
See also
- ABC Kids
- ABC Rollercoaster
- List of Australian television channels
- List of Australian radio stations
- Boyer Lectures