Joe Hockey is copping grief for saying the Coalition would not sell the ABC, as if this was some sort of betrayal. Actually, it's a testament to the future Treasurer's acumen.
How could you sell the ABC? Any potential buyer would look what must be at least a cool billion (and probably more) in severance benefits and run screaming from the table. No matter how much those who love to fantasise about handing the walking papers to Young Chip, Red Skelton and all the other incestuous fruits of an organisation now run by mates for the benefit of mates, it just can't happen that way.
Make the public broadcaster carry ads -- that's not a bad idea. Neither is making those Friends of The ABC show just what their friendship is worth by donating to keep, say, the Artscape wankers or First Tuesday Book Club on air. That's what the Americans do with their Public Broadcasting Service and that seems to work OK.
They could even run raffles and competitions. Win a date with Old Scrotumface! Scoop the pool by nominating how many times Tony Jones will interrupt! Guess what present Mark Scott will give his mentor, Fred Hilmer*, on Godfather's Day! Have your name tattooed on Marieke Hardy! Hire out Jon Faine as a kiddie-party clown! The possibilities are endless.
The ABC cannot be sold, it's impossible. But come September 8, that doesn't mean we can't have a lot of fun with it. You know, just like cats with the mice they capture.
Give us strength, Great Bunyip, to torment the living daylights out of that rotten, rancid outfit.
*After Uncle Fred was finished with him, Scott was a natural for the ABC: rotten content with not even the pretense of an obligation to make money
A FURTHER THOUGHT: One fruitful area for investigation -- very uncomfortable investigation -- must surely be how the ABC goes about hiring its, er, talent. Do Marieke Hardy's parents put in a good word for her? Or consider Julia Baird. Freshly returned from the US, where she helped shunt Newsweek into oblivion, she appeared fleetingly in the Silly, but no jobs there with all those lay-offs. Then -- hey, presto! -- she's all over the ABC, compering the Drum and popping up all over the place.
So who hired her? Where was the position-vacant ad published? If it was published, who drew up the required qualifications ("candidate must by blonde, good looking, have helped ruin a venerable magazine and be no taller than 163cm now less than 161cm...." You get the idea.)
These are questions it will be so much fun to have answered!
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Oh, Prof. I like it. Death and demolition by a thousand cuts and indignities to the soul of leftism. A parading rooster reduced to strutting without feathers and voice, reliant on the cold and uncertain charity of fickle 'friends'. True justice given what we have suffered under their regime so far.
ReplyDeleteHow about "From now on, consider A.B.C. to stand for 'Accuracy, Brevity, Clarity'"...?
DeletePorfessor (sic)
ReplyDeleteAbout ABC's balanced reporting (sic), increasingly I become more and more sic (sic).
"One fruitful area for investigation -- very uncomfortable investigation -- must surely be how the ABC goes about hiring its, er, talent. "
ReplyDeleteIt's the lefty thing. Jobs for Mates.
Prof why not just divide it up and give it to the states? It will surely fail over time that way and it's a way out for the federal government. It may even create some interstate competition although I won't hold my breath.
ReplyDeleteThe ABC should trust the Professor .... he's a Doctor.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnvVtCC-nsw
There will be no taxpayers money for the ABC under a government I lead as the All Bullsh!t Company will be no longer required to support the All Liars Pardy as they will have been consigned to history come 8.00pm September, 7, 2013.
ReplyDeleteTo sell the ABC would be cruel. To force them to make their product fairly would be even crueller. I'm for the latter option. Make the bastards do their job properly.
ReplyDeleteSkelton, Trioli, Jones etc would all head for the hills if you actually made them do their job.
And put Gina in as chairman of the board.
ReplyDeleteRight on Prof.
ReplyDeleteMake the bastards truly accountable.
Let all their staff positions openly advertised, especially bloody sinecures for has beens like the one set up for Kezza on 4 corners. Sheesh, he comes on and tells us what we are about to see and then after the show tells what we have just seen. Bloody onerous work! Love to know what we pay him for this effort. And I wont even go to that Meeja Blotch thing - what a glorious waste of everything!!
Have the annual report unabridged on the net - indeed have all ABC documentation freely available on the net.
Every ABC staffer CV also on the net for Public scrutiny.
No exemptions for FOI requests.
In short let the light shine very brightly on THEIR ABC.
Finally get rid of the dead wood like the Dunny Lane Dictator, 200m sea rise Williams - too many to list, but you get the idea!
We don't need two public broadcasters. SBS already pays some of its way with ads. Abbott should merge the SBS and ABC. Bob Hawke once favoured this. The new outfit should then continue with ads. The government should only fund capital expenditure and all recurring expenses (like wages) should be paid from the money the outfit raises from ads, book sales and program sales. That would cut the cost to taxpayers by more than half. And it would put this ABC in the real world.
ReplyDeletePedro of Adelaide
Appointing Andrew Bolt as General Manager would be a good start to internal renovations.
ReplyDeleteJust stop funding. Cut it loose. Sell shares in it, whatever, but make it suffer for stealing our tax money for the use of the ALP.
ReplyDeleteCould anyone give me a clue as to who "scrotum face" is.
ReplyDeleteWhat I want to know is; how come people like Leigh Sales working in the USA for our ABC gets to write and publish books with information she could only have obtained as an ABC employee?
ReplyDeleteIn the financial world using information obtained through your employment for personal gain is well bloody illegal.
Barry Cassidy.
ReplyDeleteI'm partial to taking advantage of the mighty NBN and decentralising the ABC. With the magic of high speed broadband, the fortresses of Ultimo and Southbank could be sold off (retaining a studio and a cameraman apiece for interviews) and the operations therein relocated to Bourke, Wangaratta, Mt Isa and Whyalla. The profits from the real estate would finance the move, with change left over to pay off the deficit; the luvvies would get to interact with more than the inner city progressives they're used to and country Australia would get a boost to their local economies. Win, win, win all round.
ReplyDeleteCold-Hands.
No. Sell it off network by network. That's the only way the problem can be fixed.
ReplyDeleteAfter that shameless bit of pro-Israeli propaganda on Radio National this Friday morning, involving the historian Daniel Pipes, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation deserves to be well-and-truly sold.
ReplyDeleteA sale is the only way of removing the Jewish/Israeli/Zionist influence that has so pervaded the ABC. When did you ever - when did you ever - hear or see the Australian Broadcasting Corporation put to air a program that was in any way critical of Israel?