Presenting Australia to the world:

A submission to the Department of Broadband,

Communications and the Digital Economy
in response to the discussion paper
ABC and SBS: Towards a digital future

by

Ken Westmoreland

16 November 2008
Should consideration be given to expanding or enhancing the overseas
services provided by the national broadcasters, and if so, in what form and to
which countries?

The overseas services of the ABC should indeed be expanded and enhanced, not
only in countries beyond the Asia-Pacific region, but ones in the region itself, which
have traditionally been overlooked, such as New Zealand. While the ABC’s domestic
television channels or Australia Network cannot be broadcast in New Zealand, owing
to rights issues, there is a great deal of excellent ABC programming that could be
carried on a dedicated channel for New Zealand, where it would reach an
appreciative audience. Below is a schedule for an ‘ABC New Zealand’ channel,
comprising a mix of original programming from ABC1, ABC2 and Australia Network.

06:00 Lateline 18:00 Offsiders

06:35 Lateline Business 19:00 The Einstein Factor
07:10 Four Corners 19:30 Talking Heads
08:00 Focus 20:00 Enough Rope With Andrew Denton
08:30 Inside Business 21:00 Australia National News
09:00 Play School 21:30 7.30 Report
09:30 Here's Humphrey 22:00 At the Movies
10:00 News 22:30 Four Corners
10:30 Focus 23:20 Media Watch
11:00 Inside Business 23:35 jtv
11:30 Asia Pacific Focus 00:35 Lateline
12:00 Offsiders 01:10 Lateline Business
13:00 Insiders 01:40 Closedown
14:00 Midday Report
14:30 Play School
15:00 Here's Humphrey
15:30 Bananas In Pyjamas
16:00 Parliament Question Time
17:00 Gardening Australia
17:30 The New Inventors

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Even many Australian TV dramas have never been shown in New Zealand, for
example, the 2006 mini-series Answered by Fire, set in East Timor in 1999, which
would have had as much resonance with New Zealand viewers as Australian ones.
(Unfortunately, the ABC did not have the international distribution rights to the series,
which, sadly, has not been shown in the UK either.)

Australia Network’s news bulletins are already carried on the Stratos TV channel in
New Zealand, which is available free-to-air on the Freeview digital platform
nationwide, as well as on community stations in Auckland and Wellington, although
as these are shown at 5pm on weekdays, they have a limited audience.

However, even that took years of negotiations, because the ABC claimed that
reception of Australia Network (then ABC Asia Pacific) in New Zealand was
unintended and unauthorised. Similarly, Television New Zealand’s digital channel,
TVNZ 7, carries the ABC’s Four Corners series, but owing to disagreements with Sky
Network, the channel cannot be received by most satellite viewers in the country.

The impression that I have, from my correspondence with the ABC is that it would be
unlikely that the federal government would fund an ‘ABC New Zealand’, but the
proposed ‘ABC 6’ or ‘best-of-overseas’ channel, could form the basis of a trans-
Tasman channel, allowing ABC programes to reach an audience in New Zealand,
and TVNZ programmes to reach audiences in Australia. (TVNZ has considered
broadcasting its own channel for the Pacific Islands, as well as a channel for Pacific
Islanders living in New Zealand. )

This could be similar to the ‘Arte’ cultural channel in Europe, jointly operated by
public broadcasters in France and Germany, which has co-produced documentaries
with SBS in Australia. Another model could the reciprocal arrangement between
Sweden and Finland, by which SVT and YLE broadcast terrestrial channels to
Swedish speakers in Finland, and Finnish speakers in Sweden respectively.

However, following the end of analogue transmissions in Finland, ‘SVT Europa’ is

now only available as a pay-TV channel. (Despite its name, the channel is available
outside Europe via the Thaicom satellite, and can be received in Australia.)

Nevertheless, an ‘ABC New Zealand’ could operate on exactly the same commercial
basis as BBC Worldwide’s growing portfolio of TV channels, available on satellite and
cable subscription packages locally. These receive no funding either from the UK
government’s grant-in-aid or from the licence fee.

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The channel could be a joint venture, similar to that between BBC Worldwide and
CanWest in Canada, which operates the BBC Canada and BBC Kids channels.
Despite the BBC branding, BBC Worldwide only has a 20 per cent stake in the
channels, the same as it had in UK.TV in Australia and New Zealand until June 2008,
when it asumed full ownership of the channel.

As regards countries outside the Asia Pacific region, channels similar to Australia
Network would enhance the image of which, regrettably, still falls victim to tiresome
stereotypes. These would probably have been reinforced by an ‘Aussie Gold’ or
‘Downunder TV’ channel, which has been mooted in the UK over the years, but
neither have ever materialised. There is more to Australian television, and culture
generally, than Home and Away or Kath and Kim, and people in the UK, Ireland, the
US, Canada South Africa, and elsewhere, should be made more aware of that.

At the very least, the ABC should offer an overseas version of its iView service,
allowing people from outside Australia to access its programming, as SBS plans to
do, possibly as a subscription-funded service.

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What is the appropriate relationship between Australia’s foreign policy
objectives and the overseas broadcasting activities of the national
broadcasters?

An ‘arm’s length’ relationship between broadcasters and governments would be the

best approach. Australia Network and Radio Australia should always be seen as
representing Australia, not the Australian government.

The arrangement by which Australia Network is subject to a competitive tender is one

that should be reviewed after 2011. While the ABC does not have a monoply on
quality programming, it is better placed than other Australian broadcasters to provide
an overseas television service, and certainly one that is publicly funded. The practice
of contestable funding is a wasteful and unnecessary one, which has had a
detrimental effect on public service broadcasting in New Zealand.

The ABC has been well known and respected in the Asia-Pacific region for decades
thanks to Radio Australia; so it is therefore entirely appropriate that it should operate
a television service drawing upon the ABC’s television output, although this should
not preclude it from carrying non-ABC programming, be it from SBS, NITV or the
commercial networks.

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Is there a need to reconcile Australia’s priorities for engagement within the
Asia–Pacific region with the requirement for the editorial and operational
independence of the national broadcasters’ overseas broadcasting activities?

No. The ABC, not least Radio Australia, has faced far greater problems in this regard
in the past than it does now, for example, in the case of Indonesia under the Suharto
regime. While governments in the region may take exception to unfavourable
reporting by the ABC, this is the same for CNN, the BBC and other Western media.

Similarly, while other broadcasters have not had to resort to self-censorship, they
have had to be mindful of cultural and political sensitivities, in order to secure
carriage for their channels in markets such as Singapore and Malaysia. This
accounts for the fact that Australia Network has had difficulty securing carriage on
Astro, Malaysia’s main pay-TV service, which will not become available in that
country until next year.

The introduction of subtitles in Asian languages on Australia Network is a very

welcome, if long overdue, development: BBC Worldwide already offers subtitling on
its BBC Entertainment and BBC Knowledge channels, so it is surprising that a
channel that describes itself as being ‘from the region, for the region’ should have
taken until now to do this. Nevertheless, it demonstrates a regard for the language
and culture of host countries, and that Australia Network is not targeted solely at
Western expatriates.