The moral misjudgment of the Chaser's Make a Wish sketch and who should shoulder the blame have merely shadowed the greater quandary facing the public broadcaster.
The pressure of the culture wars and attacks from the Howard Government institutionalized the fallacy that to justify its claim on the public purse, the ABC must deliver ratings.
The team behind The Chaser has produced content for the ABC in six of the last nine years and you have to question why they were brought back in this form.
The sketch in question was emblematic of the program’s first two episodes back after a two-year hiatus. The hour of television we've seen from the Chaser boys prior to their time in the sin bin has virtually sidestepped the current affairs and politics the group so successfully lampooned in previous series.
With the exception of the Governor General at the Melbourne Club bit, most other items would have found a place in many unmemorable Australian sketch comedy shows used to fulfill obligatory quotas of local content on commercial TV.
But whatever the quality, bringing The Chaser back was a no-brainer for the ABC under the post-Jonathon Shier era. Guaranteed ratings of over 1 million viewers for each episode would have made the program hard to pass up.
And that is the fallacy much of ABC Television and Radio has based itself upon over the last decade.
Obviously ratings give an indication of the broadcaster’s
connection with the community, but their pursuit can belie the organisation's purpose.
Perhaps the need for The Chaser to push the boundaries and stir controversy and traffic on news sites on a Thursday morning placed undue pressure to step across the line of good taste.
The ABC should focus on three areas, providing the best possible news and current affairs coverage, covering debate and areas of public interest and nurturing talent.
It’s the latter that has been largely ignored in recent times as successive Managing Directors look toward outsourcing and spreading existing content as broadly as possible across networks and new platforms.
In the process, the promotion and power of proven ratings winners has dulled the organisation’s ability to control the output.
And the tabloid push has been clear, whether it was Andrew Denton interviewing Wayne Carey about his remorse over domestic violence, the flawed Great Global Warming Swindle or Australian Story quizzing Candice Falzon about her toilet tryst. The push for ratings from within ABC programming has sought to lure viewers in regardless of the public interest.
ABC Radio in particular has led the charge, opting to embrace the edicts of American radio guru Valerie Geller. Geller's mantra is all about bringing the personal into the program, encouraging presenters to regale or bore (depending on your view) audiences with stories from their own lives.
The result has seen more personalities drafted in to engage audiences even further. Red Symons and Richard Stubbs were drafted to Melbourne local radio and now Andrew Daddo is behind the microphone for the evening show in Sydney and Canberra.
The flow on has seen younger ABC trained broadcasters languishing in regional stations, no longer inspired by a carrot of a move to the big smoke.
Symons, Stubbs and Daddo are all perfectly fine broadcasters who would probably have all found a place elsewhere on commercial radio. But what value are their high-profile names bringing to their public.
Is the audience of 666 Canberra getting a better product by hearing Andrew Daddo presenting a quiz at 7pm? And what does it matter if it attracts another 1000 listeners?
Working at the ABC in the early part of this decade there were few others below the age of 30 anywhere across the network.
The ABC doesn't have to make content we all like, particularly when it pushes the boundaries, but at least in doing so, hopefully it is out to achieve more than a quick ratings hit.
Email a friend