LET'S TELL OUR STORY BETTER

 

THE ABC OF TELLING TALES

ABC chair Kim Williams reckons the Corporation should focus more on hard news than lifestyle fillers. While purging the pap he might also look at how some stories get told, particularly to  international audiences.

This is a competitive market, with the US, Brits, French, Russians, Chinese, Qatar, South Korea, Japanese and others telecasting in perfect English and jostling to tell the world how the world should see them.

Much is propaganda, but usually watchable.

Seldom seen Down Under is our flag-waver  ABC Australia.  Stories on this site haven’t always shown  the best available, as outlined on this website earlier this year.

The latest is the coverage of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fleeing the nation she's ruled for 20 years as mobs raided her palace.

Presumably using the weird theory that an Asian story should be given an Asian treatment, the report based on wire services was delivered by the Indonesian correspondent Bill Birtles from a street in Jakarta.

The capital is 3,780 km from Dhaka and Indonesia had no involvement in the regime change. The clip could have been shot on a roadway anywhere in Oz.

On 14 August another Jakarta skyline was used when Thailand's Constitutional Court sacked Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin. Bangkok is 2,325 km from the Indonesian capital which had zilch relevance to Thai politics.  

Bangladesh is tough to penetrate (I’ve been trying), but Bangkok has scores of competent English-speaking reporters with insights and authority through being at the spot where it was all happening.  An academic appeared later to explain the situation, though not from Thailand.

On the ABC’s Just-In news site available anywhere, a story about nuclear waste disposal described the Sandy Ridge location as ‘outback WA’.  No further ID.  It’s 240 km northwest of Kalgoorlie and the company involved makes no secret of its geography - only the ABC.

Sloppy reporting or indifference to viewers and listeners with no influence?  Take your pick.

This one’s tragic, so all the more reason for care. It was about Megan Jayne Somerville   who allegedly stabbed her kids alongside a motorway in 2022; a court was told drugs were a major factor in her alleged offending.

The court had heard that  she was suffering psychosis when she assaulted her two sons, then aged three and eight. She has pleaded not guilty and the case will continue to be heard in October.

What we also wanted to know was the fate of the little boys.  The story didn’t say.  A search on other sites reveals they survived.

The woman came from Modbury Heights.  It’s  a well-known suburb to those who live there though not to this reader or the millions of others unfamiliar with South Australia.  Would the line '16 km northeast of Adelaide' have been too hard to add?

A big yarn here about the Australian navy firing a missile, something which is happening hourly in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, but fortunately rare for the Oz armed forces in our neck of the oceans.

Yet the test was launched near the US state of  Hawaii, too far away to defend our nation should the need ever arise, may the deity forbid.

The story didn't come from a journalist's diligent sleuthing but a Navy hand-me-down, aka media release. Australian taxpayers might have been interested in the cost, how far the weapon went, what was the target and whether it hit.

The military didn’t say, the ABC apparently didn’t ask, or even say it tried to ask.  That’s its job.

US singer Katy Perry got herself on ABC news “for possible environmental damage of protected dunes following her latest Ibiza-set music video”.  

This tabloid sniff included a "supplied" photo of the barely-clad lady and her video to help us ponder the despoliation and whether this might warrant extradition, jail time or worse.

It was left to  The Guardian to reveal the crime was not the ruthless trashing of the landscape to look like the Gaza strip, but filming on an uninhabited island without authorisation. By then the harm to the beach and the ABC’s credibility had been done.

Selection could have been deliberate, a clever ploy to get the indifferent young to watch a snippet and maybe hang around for some real news.  It probably drew more clicks than an Albanese and Dutton presser combined whatever the topic.

To this cynic, it should have been flagged as a free promo stunt and left to commercial media which has little reputation left for impartiality. Ms P's previous video release apparently hadn’t done well, so her career needed a boost.

Come in, sucker.

This website has previously alerted Australian viewers that news for overseas audiences gets shoved aside three nights a week to make way for hours of AFL. League is not played in any Southeast Asian state that gets ABC Australia.

It would be good to report that these flawed samples are rare.  They’re not.

Saucepans calling kettles sooty is to invite a dash to the files to reveal the critic’s  hypocrisy. Don’t bother; this writer has made enough errors in the ABC and elsewhere to power a studio with his blushing. But he’s survived thanks to alert colleagues who have edited with care and managements that supervised  seriously.

Mr Williams might want to read and watch his Corporation’s exported products with the same scrutiny. In manufacturing it’s called quality control and essential to keep shoppers returning.

Then he could let offenders know of his disquiet, as Jo and Joe Public’s complaints won’t make a frame of difference.

Viewers near and far concerned about the way the world is heading need the ABC as a trusted, balanced, honest news provider.  It would be good to believe the ABC respects  us.  On its present performance it doesn’t.

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First published in Pearls and Irritations, 21 August 2024: https://johnmenadue.com/the-abc-of-telling-tales-x2-links-b/

TELLING OUR STORY

 The ABC of talking to neighbours

 

Image:  ABC

Do we care how others see us? Not much if our prime showcase ABC Australia is a guide.

 It seems Corporation managers take a couple of positions on the overseas TV service. The staid reckon it’s a tiresome Charter-imposed chore, so just serve sportsicks on hols with League and AFL.

 Progressives spot chances to tell that Australia’s not just a cuddle-koala stopover, but a maturing society trying to get from down under to on top.

 In its 2019 report  A Missed Opportunity for Projecting Australia’s Soft Power the Lowy Institute claimed ‘international broadcasting is one of the most effective forms of public diplomacy, if managed properly…

  ‘Australia is explicitly competing for global and regional influence, yet Australia’s international broadcasting has been weakened through a combination of government inconsistency and neglect, ideology-driven decisions, budget cuts and apparent ABC management indifference.’

 Has anything changed?   Yes, but … A few programmes, like Foreign Correspondent, Books That Made Us and The School That Tried To End Racism now have Indonesian subtitles.  (Nat Geo, Discovery and other international telecasters keen to reach far and deep subtitle all fare.  Indian sitcoms are dubbed.)

 Most Indonesians still rely on TV for info but few follow English. One study ranked Indonesia 81 of 111 countries surveyed for proficiency.  

 ABC HQ in Ultimo is shuffling forward, though not fast enough to show we’re more than the descendants of murderous land thieves fumbling with ways to atone.

  We have the products, but not the packaging.  The World runs parochial pieces and a weather map that just squeezes NZ and PNG into the frame.  Programmes like the 7.30 Report are dropped or relocated with no alerts. Treat viewers with contempt and they’ll click on elsewhere.

 Some pluses: The ABC’s Jakarta bureau has reopened after the pandemic with correspondent Anne Barker. Other mainstream media, like the AFR are based in Singapore.  Which is like covering Canberra from Wellington.

 Balance means telling others how we see them and here the ABC is doing OK with three regulars - India Now, China Tonight and Planet America. Will the Arafura Sea gap get bridged?

 Sally Jackson of ABC News communications told this column ‘there are no other (programmes focused on specific countries) to announce at this time.’   If that response isn’t a  hint of plans to feature the world’s third largest democracy next door, then we’ll continue to know more of Mar-a-Lago than Istana Bogor, (a Presidential palace 60 km south of Jakarta.)

 On 14 February 2024  Indonesians go to the polls, making last year’s G20 Bali shindig look like a pub chat. The campaign is already gearing up through conferences, meetings, statements and spanduk (huge banners) which smother road signs and turn streetscapes into avenues of ads.

 The Constitution says two five-year terms as Pres are enough, so Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo can’t stay beyond October next year.  There’s been a tepid attempt to keep his shoes on the doorstep, but so far he’s shown minimal warmth.

 The president is elected by direct vote.  No compulsion.  Last time the turnout was 81 per cent of the 187 million registered voters – minimum age 17. The total population has increased by more than ten million (to an estimated 281 million) in the past five years.

 What Indonesians  know about Australia isn’t much and what they care is even less if surveys are right. On the street it’s often bemusement:  How can a country be independent with the Union Jack on its flag? Do pythons curl under toilet seats?  Are we really Washington’s deputy sheriff?

  That’s not our neighbours’  fault, because we’re making small effort to tell our story. The Coalition had little enthusiasm for public broadcasting, particularly if it meant spending money on a service for foreigners.  

 The former ABC managing director Mark Scott (now head of NSW Education) commented that pruning overseas services:

 ‘…runs counter to the approach adopted by the vast majority of G20 countries. Countries around the world are expanding their international broadcasting services as key instruments of public diplomacy.’ They include Britain, the US, Japan, South Korea, Qatar, France, Germany, Singapore, Russia and China.  

 The public broadcaster reportedly had $526 million cut from its budgets since 2014. Last November Communications Minister Michelle Rowland told The Guardian that on top of a new five-year funding cycle there’s a review underway.

 Labor calls its strategy a ‘strong Australian voice’ in the ‘Indo Pacific’. The term is spongy but here it apparently means 38 countries  disparate in culture, language, rule and drive, all served by one channel. Two years ago $11 million a year was being spent on its combined international services, with ABC Australia costing around $4 million. 

It’s distributed by Intelsat to re-broadcasters. They get it free, but the viewers don’t. In Indonesia, three pay-to-use cable services carry the service.

Voice of America’s annual budget is US $267 million, all from government funds. It broadcasts and telecasts in more than 40 languages, including Indonesian. The French Government is reported to spend E 102 million a year on France 24.

 The last ABC annual report  had a monthly viewership of ‘at least 3.6 million’ for ABC Australia.  The ten-member ASEAN population alone is 686 million.

  Declared candidate Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto, who has just been put in charge of coordinating intel, has been involved in whacky dog whistling about invasion threats.

 The latest Is wanting army commands installed in Kalimantan province (Borneo) because ‘the natural resources of these regions (are) vulnerable to being stolen by other parties.’

Imagined LGBT infiltrators corrupting the pious is heading to be another dirty issue.  

 It will be Prabowo’s third stab at the top job. The former general went into exile in 1998 after being discharged for ‘misinterpreting orders’.

 If electors start to believe campaign claims poisoning the relationship they’ll need an independent trusted source for facts and counter-views.  Concerned viewers should click ABC Australia but only those who understand English.

 ##

Disclosure: The author used to work for ABC Current Affairs.

 

First published in Independent Australia 10 February 2023: https://independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/the-abc-of-talking-to-neighbours,17217

THE ABC OF BAD BROADCASTING ABROAD

 

   A hodge-podge is not an international service

 

As Opposition Leader touring overseas, Anthony Albanese probably clicked on ABC Australia TV to kill time.  If so his claim that ‘it’s a matter of national security that the ABC makes more content that projects Australian values and interests to the Indo-Pacific region’ sounds like despair driving action.

Albanese playing with the remote in an Indonesian hotel room would have been swamped with shame.  Channels from Britain, the US, Japan, South Korea, Qatar, France, Germany, Singapore, Russia and China – all with programmes showcasing their nations’ ‘identity, values and interests’ (the PM’s words), and doing so in quality English, sometimes with local captions.  Against this line-up Australia isn’t even in the pool.

The PM’s comments were made last week at the ABC's 90th anniversary shin-dig in Sydney.  According to the broadcaster he ‘reaffirmed Labor's previous funding commitments to restore $83.7 million … as well as five-year funding terms and options for financial sustainability which safeguard against political interference.’

This is a shaft at Julie Bishop, the former Foreign Minister who turned off the Australia Network (the predecessor to ABC Australia) in 2014 to the angst of many independent experts, because it ‘had failed to deliver a cost-effective vehicle’.  This followed a heavy artillery assault on the service by Murdoch media

She offered no facts to back the claim leading to the paranoid seeing revenge as Channel 7 once sought public money to go offshore. The then ABC managing director Mark Scott commented that the decision:

‘…runs counter to the approach adopted by the vast majority of G20 countries. Countries around the world are expanding their international broadcasting services as key instruments of public diplomacy.’

Because the ABC Charter forces it to be an international broadcaster the gap had to be filled. The result was Australia Plus now ABC Australia with an allowance of $20 million for three years.

Voice of America’s annual budget is $315 million, all from government funds. It broadcasts and telecasts in more than 40 languages, including Indonesian.

The French Government is reported to spend $169 million a year on France 24 while Russia’s RT channel is believed to get through $434 million every twelvemonth.  (All figures in Australian dollars). Much is propaganda (no balance in the Red channels) but so well packaged the messages are subtle and the pictures usually splendid.

Said Albanese this month: ‘On top of every other consideration, it (international broadcasting) is a prudent investment in our national security as well as our national interest … undervalued by the previous government, even trivialised.’  Reason having failed to move governments, China plonking transmitters around the zone has done the trick.

Labor calls its strategy a ‘strong Australian voice’ in the ‘Indo Pacific’.  But where is this wonderworld?   The term is beloved by politicians, economists and climatologists, though not ABC chair Ita Buttrose who uses ‘Asia Pacific’.

Either way this is a vast area and includes 48 countries, according to the US Transportation Department. They’re as disparate in culture, language, rule and drive as Mongolia is from Singapore, the only commonality being included in ellipses drawn by Western cartographers.

The last ABC annual report claimed ABC Australia is available ‘in more than 38 markets across Asia and the Pacific, and has a monthly viewership of at least 2,553,000.’  Whether these are regulars, or ten second tries-and-goodbyes isn’t known.  Note ‘markets’ not nations.

This is a one-size-fits-all approach.  Business experts say products must be designed for consumers for top sales.  So why telecast full AFL games on three days a week to the democracy next door where all balls are round, and its 273 million citizens don’t care a damn whether Geelong will thrash St Kilda.

ABC Australia programmes are shunted and shifted without notice. A presenter tells what’s coming next - then something different appears. The channel’s Internet TV Guide is a misnomer; TV Guesser would be better.

 Nat Geo docos are subtitled in Indonesian.  Likewise the History Channel, Animal Planet, Discovery, BBC Earth and many others, even crime and food programmes. Exceptions on ABC Australia include some one-off docos, a few science and art shows and the worthy Books that Made Us opening the pages on our culture. 

These translations are a welcome recent innovation – but costly if done well. Machine jobs are imperfect, particularly with slang and idioms, good for giggles, not grasp.

ABC Australia’s flagship is The World a one-hour news bulletin.  Despite its title the programme is padded with parochial yarns. Other news spots get State bulletins wrapped with a local weather forecast. The heat in Halls Creek and rain in Albany may excite viewers in these tiny towns, but get a WTF response in Surabaya and Makassar.

An estimated 64 million households in Indonesia have receivers, the highest saturation rate in Southeast Asia.  No focus-group surveys needed to show viewers want wholesome fare to suit their taste, not innutritious trolley-fillers.

In its 2019 report  A Missed Opportunity for Projecting Australia’s Soft Power the Lowy Institute claimed ‘international broadcasting is one of the most effective forms of public diplomacy, if managed properly…

 ‘Australia is explicitly competing for global and regional influence, yet Australia’s international broadcasting has been weakened through a combination of government inconsistency and neglect, ideology-driven decisions, budget cuts and apparent ABC management indifference.’

Extra money for the ABC is fine and dandy, but this isn’t all about dollars. Albanese’s drive for a meaningful service needs to swerve past managers who reckon any show with a roo and a beach will satisfy foreigners.

Maybe once. Not now.  Like the PM in a Hilton, viewers can click. Getting the turn-offs to turn on will need translations and curated programming by progressive producers who know the ‘market’ has matured.

[Some of this story is based on a two-part Pearls & Irritations 2020 report (here and here) which analysed the ABC’s international offerings.]

First published in Pearls & Irritations, 11 August 2022: https://johnmenadue.com/a-hodge-podge-is-not-an-international-service/

 

 

 

 

 

THE ABC OF STUFFING UP OVERSEAS TV

             SENDING A STRANGE MESSAGE TO THE REGION   

              

The slashing and burning of ABC workers, their goodies and services seems to have missed the overseas TV service ABC Australia.  That’s no reason to whoop.  Further cuts will kill.

It has to be seen to be disbelieved.  

ABC Australia is our TV showcase to 37 Asia Pacific nations we want to impress, particularly the biggest on the block - Indonesia.  Tune in! We belong here, have aid projects, can give a hand with a few jolly education slots, warn you about druggies.

More importantly we can sell tucker you want. Might share a nod and a wave.  Mateship’s too strong.  That needs closeness and trust.

Definitions can be a turn-off, but this one’s necessary. Patience, please. ‘Asia Pacific’ is a pendulum term and this story is more about the western arc. For Canberra right now it’s swung east with the ‘PacificAus TV initiative’.

For $17.1 million across three years, seven Pacific states including PNG will get 1,000 hours a year of free-to-air Aussie TV. So far islanders’ reactions have been muted, noting the info-flow is one-way colonisation by media – big countries produce, small ones consume.  MasterChef should go down well in dirt-floor kitchens with no running water.

Officially PacificAus TV ‘complements a range of initiatives to enhance Australia’s engagement in the Pacific’ which is a load of guff, though Shadow Minister for Communications Michelle Rowland sees Reds under the hammocks:

‘While the Morrison Government has been cutting the ABC and diminishing Australia’s soft power, China has been making significant investments in its global media footprint and growing its reach and influence in the region.’

‘Soft power’ also oscillates. Former Foreign Minister Alexander Downer defined it as ‘a credible and independent voice through programmes that present a window on Australia and Australian perspectives of the world.’

Logically we’d be putting money and imagination into revealing who we are and what we do.  That’s been our overseas media policy for more than a quarter-century but needs reglazing. Now’s the time, using the new free trade agreement with Indonesia.

Instead the panes on Downer’s homely metaphor are cracked and smeared, the frames rotten. The place is going downhill.  The residents don’t care a damn about separating plastics, tins and food; they bung the lot into one wheelie bin and put it out on the wrong days.  The homeowner is the ABC, the rubbish ABC Australia and its transmitters the trash truck.  Bundled together the result is an embarrassment.

But who’d know? The service can’t be easily seen in Australia so little interest.  Even ABC Friends, the ‘promoter and defender’ of the Corporation and chaired by former Labor Senator Margaret Reynolds didn’t respond to questions about ABC Australia. 

 So here’s an appraisal of the menu:

Our overseas viewers are being served with so much ill-prepared, repetitious, boring and inappropriate fare customers shop elsewhere.  They have choice aplenty -  the BBC, Al Jazeera, DW (Germany) France 24, Arirang (South Korea), Voice of America, NHK (Japan) RT (Russia) and other channels offering quality programmes screened to suit the  locals.

Now that sport is back from quarantine Okkers abroad can watch the big men fly three hours every evening from Thursday to Sunday on ABC Australia.  No matter that the AFL isn’t played in the target countries; this service is for those who couldn’t or wouldn’t get home before borders closed.

Head of ABC International David Hua offered this justification: ‘The code is uniquely Australian and being able to showcase it to audiences overseas is important.’  So viewers get 12 hours a week of physical clashes, about the same for the occasionally cerebral 7.30 Report, Insiders, The Drum, and the daily news The World combined. This last programme is produced for the service and does have merit.

Before the lockdown when about 1.3 million Australians went to Bali every year, Kuta bars billboarded Rules and Rugby to suck in thirsty fans. No point now.

Our Embassy in Jakarta reckons about 3,000 Aussies remain in the Republic.  Most are in business or retirees on the Hindu-majority island.  Some footy fanatics may need to hear sirens; it’d be good to think others moved to the archipelago to experience different cultures and live without a nostalgia kick.

Getting through to the masses is easy in Indonesia; TVs are as common as street eateries where sets are as essential as woks.  Likewise in shops, restaurants and government departments where the idle watch plot-thin sinetron (soapies) while waiting for work.

An estimated 64 million households in Indonesia (pop 270 million) have receivers, the highest saturation rate in Southeast Asia.  This is a legacy of last century’s Soeharto era when huge sums were spent using satellites to beam government propaganda into every nook of the 6,000 occupied islands.

During much of the dictator’s 32-years, the national broadcaster TVRI had a monopoly.  Now there’s democracy the cables and free-to-airwaves jostle for frequencies.  Many channels owned by tycoons are so partisan they make Fox News look balanced.

Our overseas TV ventures started in 1993 with Australia Television International.  Nine years later it became ABC Asia Pacific, and in 2006 Australia Network with funding from Foreign Affairs and Trade plus advertising.  Downer claimed it would reach ten million homes and 200,000 hotel rooms in 41 countries; maybe one million viewers a month.  The budget was $200 million for a decade.

He said the ABC would run the network offering ‘high-quality programmes about Australia and its engagement with the region.’ Also promised were ‘extensive news and current affairs programmes, Australian-produced education, drama, entertainment and lifestyle programmes.’ 

Australia Network CEO, the late Ian Carroll, added: ‘Our news and current affairs programmes provide more than the headlines – it is quality world-class journalism offering a different view from the London and US-centric networks’.

In 2011 the Australian Labor Government called tenders to run Australia Network. The two main hopefuls were the ABC and Sky TV which had long campaigned to get the job. 

When it seemed Rupert Murdoch’s company had the nod the process was scrapped and the task given to the ABC.

Revenge was rapid. After the Coalition won office in 2013 Australia Network was switched off. FM Julie Bishop said it ‘had failed to deliver a cost-effective vehicle’ though gave no facts to back the claim. The then ABC managing director Mark Scott said the decision:

‘…runs counter to the approach adopted by the vast majority of G20 countries. Countries around the world are expanding their international broadcasting services as key instruments of public diplomacy.

‘It sends a strange message to the region that the government does not want to use the most powerful communication tools available to talk to our regional neighbours about Australia.’

Turning off life support for Australia’s overseas TV service in 2013 may have satisfied the Coalition’s political ideology but a legal reality prevented burial: The ABC Charter says it must run an international service.

The result was Australia Plus with a $20 million budget for three years propped up by sponsors. The public service – commercial telecaster marriage was a disaster.

The ads from Monash University, the Victorian Government and food supplement manufacturer Swisse Wellness were repetitious, discursive and often plain weird.  Indonesian commercials tend to be as unsubtle as a runaway road train.

With 2018 came another change to the present tautology: ABC Australia and its banal slogan Yours.  At the time the Head of ABC International David Hua said ‘rebranding makes sense to our audiences overseas, who want distinctive Australian content from a highly-respected media organisation.’

The official blurb reads: ‘Our mission is to provide a television and digital service that informs, entertains and inspires our audience with a uniquely Australian perspective.’

Since then a new reason has wriggled in: ‘The ABC provides content for Australians living abroad and local audiences living outside of Australia.’ Hello, hello, what’s this?  A shift from ‘soft power’ to satisfying a few ex-pats?  

Hua responded: “I disagree with the premise that the ABC has made the shift you describe. Perhaps ‘local audiences living outside of Australia’ is an awkward description of Indonesians in Indonesia, Vietnamese in Vietnam etc.”

So ex-pats can feel at home with Lah-Lah’s Stripy Sock Club, Home and Away and Planet America.  Some may query that programme’s relevance on an Australian overseas service, but its presence shows our priorities.

In 2018 the Department of Communications and the Arts published a 193-page review of Australian Broadcasting Services in the Asia Pacific, mainly concentrating on short-wave closed the previous year.

The Lowy Institute submission claimed our international broadcasting was ‘under-resourced’. ‘...   Australia must overcome its poor record in this area, and make a renewed investment in international broadcasting platforms and content to restore its relevance as a constructive and independent soft power partner in the region.’

What’s happened to the review? The Department’s response was terse and useless: ‘The review is being used to inform policy development.’

Governments and Oppositions endlessly proclaim the importance of Indonesia, stressing the social, economic, defence, security and community benefits of developing a strong and enduring relationship. 

The politicians aren’t singing solo. Academics, business leaders, journalists, NGOs and politicians consistently chant the need for better education – particularly language and cultural studies - improved communications and closer contact with the neighbours.

Last year ABC Chair Ita Buttrose, a great fan of ‘soft power’ told the Lowy Institute: ‘The importance of journalism to our country’s Asia-Pacific interests cannot be underestimated and I believe a renewed ABC focus on international broadcasting would greatly benefit Australia.’

So it’s logical we’d be despatching our best and brightest programmes selected specifically for the Republic to back the chorus.

If only. Most offerings on ABC Australia were originally made for domestic audiences.  Programmes are moved around without notice. The presenter tells what’s coming next - then something different appears. The channel’s Internet TV Guide is a misnomer; TV Guesser would be better.

On 5 July the long-awaited Indonesia-Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement clicks into place.  The free trade deal includes education services, offering an opportunity to couple the ABC and other programme-makers with stations in the region.

ABC Australia is distributed by Intelsat and downlinked by 126 re-broadcasters across the region. They get it free, but the viewers don’t. In Indonesia, three pay-to-use cable services carry ABC Australia. A few take blocks of content – mainly educational - and insert into local channels.  

The ABC spends $11 million a year on its combined international services.  Hua estimated ABC Australia costs from $2.5 to $4 million a year.  That’s significantly less than the $200 million for a decade of Australia Network and the three- year $20 million budget for the old Australia Plus.

Another relevant figure is the $17.1 million suddenly found this year for the ‘PacificAus TV initiative’ which at its best will reach only 11 million.  That’s 0.4 per cent of the Indonesian population.

Commented Labor’s Rowland: “$11 million per annum is a drop in the ocean and insufficient to realise the potential of the ABC as a soft power asset.

“ABC funding has gone backwards as other nations seeking to exercise greater soft power increase their presence in the region.”

A report last month (May) by the ‘progressive think tank’ Per Capita for the activist group GetUp! claimed the ABC’s real funding had slipped almost 30 per cent since 1986.

After ABC MD David Anderson announced a new strategy and massive cuts Hua was asked if ABC Australia had ducked the knife:   “The proposed changes at this stage do not directly impact on the international services. Of course any cuts to the ABC effects (sic) the wider teams.”

The TV programmes we export are almost all in English. Those from Nat Geo are subtitled in Indonesian.  Likewise the History Channel, Animal Planet, Discovery, BBC Earth and many others, including crime and food channels.

Said Hua: ‘While it would be desirable to offer localised dubbing and or subtitles, the cost of this across all of our markets is prohibitive.”  So Home and Away along with other fare is only accessible to those with a good grasp of English, and that’s few Indonesians outside the well-educated elite.

A survey by the English First international chain of language schools ranks Indonesia behind Vietnam in proficiency.  Although English is taught in state schools it’s usually rote learning. Few graduates can handle the spoken word.  Subtitling programmes might make them useful in classrooms while helping the kids better understand their neighbour.

Hua said that before the 2014 funding cuts three satellites were used to break up timezones.  Now there’s only one, so News Breakfast is screened at 3 am in Jakarta and the 7.30 Report at 4.30 pm.  Come daylight saving and the times jump back an hour.

Hua: “With programming like News Breakfast, we do have a preference to run it live ... Our audiences have grown to be 1.6 million affluent Asians in 10 markets. In Indonesia it’s 304,745 viewers in the past 30 days.”  (It’s not known how many of these are in hotels.)

“We do seek to first reach audiences who have an interest in Australia and who wish to build on that through content across our platforms.”

Question:  The impression is that ABC Australia is an unwelcome chore maintained only because required by law yet given insufficient resources.  Is that a fair conclusion?

Hua: “No. The ABC marked 80 years of international broadcasting in December 2019. The reputation, audience reach, and the multitude of services is something that Australians should see as a national asset and be proud of.

“The ABC is keen to build more awareness of our services and to explore opportunities to expand Australia’s voice in the region and around the world.

“It’s important for Australians to share stories with people across the region and around the world to build mutual understanding and trust.”

Fine sentiments indeed.  Who’d disagree?  But this isn’t what ABC Australia is delivering.

First published in Pearls & Irritations, 30 June and 1 July 2020:

https://johnmenadue.com/duncan-graham-sending-a-strange-message-to-the-region/

and

https://johnmenadue.com/duncan-graham-the-abc-out-of-sight-out-of-care/