I’ve been waiting for the dust to settle from ABC Managing Director Mark Scott’s lecture two weeks ago to say this, but the dust doesn’t seem to want to lie down.
So I will say it anyway. I think we have missed the main point.
Sure, the attack on Emperor Rupert was entertaining and an easy headline, but I think the thread of Scott’s speech that will have more long term significance is what he said about the power of the audience, and how the ABC might respond to this. Remember this bit?
Successful organisations will be willing to empower their audiences to contribute, to create and to share media. Will cede power to audiences to gain engagement and respect.
They will be willing to let other voices to be heard. They will learn how to protect brand integrity whilst entrusting their brand to others.
To a degree everyone is doing this, but the greatest success will come when an audience, long treated with an oligipolist’s disdain, is treated with real respect and the contribution is seen as a valued contribution. The simple fact is that young audiences – the future of every media organisation, including the ABC – have the tools and now the experience and the expectation to create and share media.
They do it with their friends, they want to do it with us. It is how they connect and belong.
And the media organisation that doesn’t make audience contribution a central part of their strategy, fades to black. We recognised immediately that by mixing content that comes from within the ABC with content from without, the pro–am model we end up with the most powerful content possible.
We are still working on getting the balance right.
The rumble in the jungle is that we might be hearing more about this soon. Watch this space.
6 Comments
Margaret – I really missed that because I didn’t catch the whole speech.
Very pertinent tho and something that Murdoch will not be able to do as easily and successfully as the ABC with its myriad of arms.
I wish I was younger – it will be very interesting and exciting.
Murdoch is stuffed. His only hope is to close up the national broadcasters or make them charge. And to do that he needs the Republicans and Liberals in power as they will be quite willing to put Murdoch over the people.
Scott from today’s Sydney Mag interview “My job is to ask stupid questions” ….. And give stupid answers Garbage in garbage out theory. Those of us who had to put up with him at the Herald are highly amused by his new found media obsession. Not something he displayed while he presided over the circulation slide of the major titles without ever trying to avert i or showing he had any ideas which might be worth trying. He couldn’t wait to get off the news floor and downstairs to mahogany row where he was the torch bearer for every dumb idea Fred Hilmer had (any there were many) Watch series Five of The Wire especially the one where the Editor in chief stands on a chair in the newsroom and tells everyone job cuts are coming “we have to do more with less”. Then they closed all their overseas bureaux, aScott speciality which no doubt will soon be visited on the ABC. The Editor In Chief in the The Wire in series five channels Scott throughout as he presides over the killing of the Baltimore Sun.
As one of the news room journos says Less is More? No less is less.
Yup, Scott gets to second base. We don’t have to lectured at by Murfax or anyone. We don’t need them to set The Agenda. But it’s not just “the young” (”they”). And the “pro-am” notion is ultimately patronising. Does he really think that the “amateurs” won’t catch up? What then? The ABC etc. could downsize, become relay stations. One node among many…
Scott is in a revolving door with his mates – Beecher, Noonan, Warren et al. They’re having a fine conversation. Based on their extensive experience and the high regard of their professional peers. Pity they have to do it in public. It’s getting positively discomfiting. Take a look at the Sydney Mag!
Yes, I would have expected better from Malcolm Knox, but I guess he has to make a living.