Last year we discussed public media, and its role in society. It is a binary opponent of commercial media, which means some things and implies others. For instance; would public media broadcasters be swayed to air something because commercial ones had failed to do so? Or vice versa? Both must compete for ratings, and yet the differences of funding for both would imply that they could not both be free to pursue the same information to present. For instance, because ABC and SBS are held "in common" by the people, a commercial criticism would be that they can broadcast entirely irrelevant material and not be held as accountable to their viewers as a commercial platform (elitism, out of touch). Or, a public criticism would be that treating information as a commodity would potentially violate the quality of that source as it can often end up being rendered into a snack fast-food format (homogeneity, dumbing down).
Public media is defined as a public service more than being a commodity. The key word is "more", because P.M still cannot exist if there are no viewers. Without them it could not justify its funding.SBS for instance is "hybridised" with about 20% of its funds acquired through adverts. But, back to P.M as a service. Governments that supply their citizens with more public services (health care, education, welfare, etc) tend to lean slightly more on socialist conceptions of what law should be. Institutions such as ABC, SBS, or international broadcasters such as BBC or NHK exist because of this funding. This would impact upon the ideologies of these respective bodies. A more right wing laissez-faire approach like the USA's does not inculcate social responsibility over profit generation, which is why the article on PBS was mentioned (http://www.miller-mccune.com/politics/might-public-broadcasting-follow-bbc-model-28543/). Costello's criticism of the ABC; that it only rebuts labour policy if "it is perceived to be betraying 'true labour principles'... But labour will never be criticized for entrenching union power, or going soft on law enforcement, or spending money it doesn’t have.... the 7.30 report have a consistent editorial perspective" indicates that public media could be seen to be partisan to the success of the (left) labour party. (http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/08/28/crikey-says-74/)
As a public service, one of the duties of public media is to provide "public value" for all its citizens, regardless of geographic, racial, or other outlier obscurity. This explains the existence of ABC's extensive rural radio service, or of SBS's multicultural ethos. It seeks to provide “nation building, national heritage, national identity, and national conversation” discourses so as to define the role of the audience as being enfranchised participants within liberal democracy. “The difference between commercial broadcasting and public broadcasting is the difference between consumers and citizens” (Nigel Milan, fmr. Managing Director, SBS). 4th estate journalism is considered one of those roles; however it can be argued that quality of information can be severely impinged upon by partisan interests. The Government can “starve” undesirable information off public mediums by allocating funding to only the ‘appropriate’ pieces. According to Costello, 85% of Australians believe the ABC is unbiased. In 2008, “Today Tonight” (7) had 1,374,000 views, and “A Current Affair” (9) had 1,124,000 views. Assuming (they run on half hour timeslots and could be watched conjunctively one after the other) that viewers watched one of these two shows, and not the other, we can accumulate these numbers together to 2,498,000 views. Assuming that the population of Australia was 22 million at this time (conservative estimates suggest they are less than 50,000 now), this constitutes roughly 11% of Australia. Therefore, almost all of the Australians that do not believe the ABC is unbiased watch “Today Tonight” or “A Current Affair”, which I think damages Costello’s argument significantly.
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