Lecture Seven: Public Media

The lecture this week started off with an absolute cracker of a quote from the former Managing Director of SBS, Nigel Milan, who said "the difference between commercial broadcasting and public broadcasting is the difference between consumers and citizens," which made me feel very self important for being of that opinion already. It pleased my inner snob greatly (I need to kill that facet off if I'm ever going to get anywhere in journalism, but it's been difficult. It's why I'm here). I love public media. I feel that it's as balanced as the media is going to get, and while it's still unbalanced, it's good enough.


The most significant public media body in Australia is undoubtedly the ABC network. It boasts multiple television channels as well as radio, which reaches every part of the country that can get a signal. There is also it's online presence in the form of websites which support the various channels and stations, as well as ABC News online, a text-based news outlet. It was born to be a shaper of the nation; it sure shaped me. I watched ABC as a child, mostly because it's all I had living in far Western New South Wales, and listened to Triple J and ABC Radio, because, well, once again I'm from the boondocks and commercial media was just to cool to bother with people living in dust-bowls in the late eighties and early nineties. Either that or it was utter rubbish. (I had a feeling this blog was going to get personal, I wasn't wrong.)


Back to my point, public media is meant to be accessible to the public, because it's funded by us and it's exclusively for us, not for advertisers, not for media barons, just the average citizen. Which is a problem in itself; how does a media outlet cater for 22 million people who are all different. Not just "she likes unicorns, but she likes dinosaurs with laser cannons" different, but culturally different. This country is almost entirely made up of immigrants or descendants of them, and we come from every language and culture, so to cater to an audience so broad while not compromising on anything would be a nightmare.


Because of this, ABC and SBS are not all that accessible to everyone. There are many demographics which are not catered to. While their programming is considered, educated and contains important information, it is also viewed as elitist, limited and out of touch. Both outlets have tried to combat this by dividing their energy into different channels, such as ABC's children orientated channels, youth programming (Good Game, Hungry Beast, Triple J), SBS's multiple channels with different languages, while still keeping serious 'broadsheet' material for the rest.


Fortunately this country is fairly easygoing with it's media, so we can have programming like this. Public media in other countries often serves the purpose of delivering propaganda to the masses. Public media in Australia is held in common, not by the government, so it is owned and influenced by the people and their wants, rather than the other way around.


There are many challenges that public media faces to stay relevant and still maintain it's original purpose of being a nation builder and educator. I'm confident, however, that it will continue to be a strong presence in Australia's media climate. It wouldn't hurt if it got more funding though.