February 24, 2009 – 1:41 pm
According to what Minister for Communications Senator Stephen Conroy told Senate Estimates yesterday, an announcement is imminent on the new appointees to the ABC and SBS Boards. Not before time.
It is surprising Conroy didn’t get more of a grilling about this. Like most things connected with his portfolio, it has taken forever.
So who has their [...]
February 20, 2009 – 4:34 pm
The most notable, though not the most surprising, item in MEAA Federal Secretary Chris Warren’s weekly missive, posted earlier, is that the ABC pay dispute has been settled.
For those who just came in, the latter stages of this dispute were very strange, with the ABC Section of the Community and Public Sector Union accusing ABC [...]
February 13, 2009 – 9:29 am
I’ve written before about the launch of pay television’s public affairs channel A-Pac, and what a slap in the face it has been for the ABC’s plans to launch a similar channel.
But how good is A-Pac? I just ran across this post on Syd Walker’s blog which describes how the same event is played again, [...]
February 10, 2009 – 1:13 pm
The Australian Communications and Media Authority is reviewing last night’s Media Watch program and will “consider” whether it is necessary to take action over Alan Jones’ promotion of David Jones.
Following my previous post about Media Watch’s latest “gotcha” in the never ending cash for comment affair, a spokesman for ACMA has provided me with the [...]
February 10, 2009 – 12:48 pm
The ABC’s Media Watch was back last night, having missed a whole summer of strong media stories during its excessively long recess.
It was good, then, to see it make a strong debut. And a shame that the broadcasting regulators, together with most of the nation’s television watchers, were all apparently watching Underbelly instead [...]
February 6, 2009 – 1:22 pm
It’s a day for stories out of the ABC. It has been announced that Stephen Crittenden, the former presenter of ABC Radio National’s Religion Report, is returning to work as a reporter on the investigative show Background Briefing.
Crittenden, as ABC lovers will remember, was suspended last October after he used his show to criticise management’s [...]
February 6, 2009 – 12:55 pm
I have a story in the Crikey e-mail today about the ABC withdrawing a pay offer to staff in what the union is describing as a demonstration of “incompetence at the most senior levels of the ABC.” I promised to put the core documents on the blog.
here is the Union Bulletin put out by the [...]
February 2, 2009 – 2:10 pm
As those who read the weekend Australian or Matthew Ricketson’s blog will know by now, the Boston Consulting Group at the behest of the ABC has done a report recommending that the ABC and SBS become one organisation, merging all functions other than television programming, news and radio.
In a nice piece of management-consultant euphemism, the [...]
January 27, 2009 – 6:52 pm
My long article on threats and opportunities for the ABC and SBS, resulting from an Australia Day reading of submissions to the Government’s review of public broadcasting has been published at Inside Story.
January 27, 2009 – 9:00 am
Some go to the beach. Some have barbecues. Lucky them.
I spent Australia Day reading through some of the more than 2400 submissions to the Government’s review of public broadcasting. I could dress this up as patriotism, I suppose. No. It’s just sad.
Anyway, the result is a short news story for Crikey later today, plus a [...]
