Incoming ABC chair Kim Williams faces a stiff challenge to fix problems at the public broadcaster

Can incoming ABC chair Kim Williams implement meaningful change to the public broadcaster?

At the end of his five-year term at the ABC, that will be the sole benchmark on which his tenure will be judged.

Nothing more, nothing less.

By any measure, the taxpayer-funded broadcaster is beset with editorial and structural problems; in fact, many of its fiercest critics argue that the organisation has drifted so far from its charter as to render it largely irrelevant to mainstream Australia.

Audiences have left in droves, amid perceptions of left-wing journalistic bias.

Resources have been brutally stripped from the regions and rural Australia, the very areas where the national broadcaster is needed the most.

And the less said about ABC journalists routinely abandoning the profession’s core values via “look-at-me” posts on social media the better.

What, if anything, can Williams do to arrest the public’s confidence in the capacity of the ABC to deliver a quality news service?

Can he re-engage lost audi­ences, and stop what has been a dramatic slide in ABC ratings?

Williams, a veteran media executive, has plenty of media industry runs on the board, with his visionary leadership and strategic nous during his decade-long stint at Foxtel often credited as one of the key reasons why the pay-TV company was able to survive, and develop into the sports and entertainment powerhouse it is today.

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland, left, Mr Williams and Anthony Albanese in Canberra. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman.

Throw in successful stints as CEO at the Australian Film Commission and Southern Star Entertainment, and senior roles with the Sydney Opera House Trust, the Copyright Agency and the AFL Commission, and you have a top-tier corporate resume.

The only major blot on the 71-year-old’s CV is his rocky two-year tenure as CEO of News Corp (publisher of The Australian), where he repeatedly clashed with editors, many of whom were of the view that Williams fundamentally misunderstood the newspaper business.

The ABC is a different beast altogether: the tail wags the dog. Too often, it appears the editorial body answers to no one.

Witness the staff vote of no-confidence this week in managing director David Anderson, who had the audacity to decide that pro-Palestinian advocate Antoinette Lattouf shouldn’t be able to use the ABC as a platform to espouse her personal views.

That saga has been in the headlines for a month. Media figures who have worked closely with Williams on Wednesday said it was hard to imagine the Lattouf drama would have dragged on for so long had he been in charge.

Williams admits he is not one to sit on his hands and settle for the status quo: he concedes he doesn’t “suffer fools” and his feedback on editorial matters can be “quite severe”.

“It’s certainly a fault of mine,” he told The Australian.

Maybe that’s just what the ABC needs.