Kim Williams outlines ABC renewal, calls for funding boost

ABC chair Kim Williams has shared his vision for a dramatic overhaul of the national broadcaster, calling for an increase in taxpayer funding.

ABC chair Kim Williams. Source: ABC.

ABC chair Kim Williams has outlined his vision for a dramatic renewal of the national broadcaster, with the overhaul to be underpinned by a frank internal assessment of the relevance of the taxpayer-funded media organisation in the digital age.

Delivering the Redmond Barry Address at the State Library of Victoria on Wednesday night, Mr Williams – who assumed the role of ABC chair in early March – said the exponential growth of digital technology was threatening society’s “freedoms and our democracy”, and was presenting serious challenges for modern media companies including the ABC.

“A starting point (for the ABC) must be a greater understanding of the wants and behaviours of our audiences, and some tough assessments about whether we are fulfilling our audiences’ needs, interests and aspirations to the extent we should be,” Mr Williams said.

“How else can we be the reliable and compelling microphone and mirror to the nation?”

Mr Williams pinpointed key areas of the change that are needed at the national broadcaster, including “a renewed Radio National” to uphold the ABC’s “purpose and intellectual ambition”.

The ABC’s radio arm has experienced a sharp decline in ratings over the past two years, with Radio National’s audience slump of particular concern to management.

In his speech Mr Williams acknowledged that the ABC “must have a strong accountability framework that requires it to do better.”

“We need to be toughminded to achieve our goals and we need to measure performance reliably,” he said.

ABC chair Kim Williams gave an address at the State Library of Victoria.

But in controversial remarks which are sure to attract criticism Mr Williams called for an increase to the annual funding of the ABC – which currently draws about $1.1bn in taxpayer money each year – to help achieve its “renewal”.

“Of course, achieving our goals will also take something else. Something you have probably guessed. Investment,” he said.

“We all know greater investment will be needed. The ABC is an investment in Australia’s future because a revitalised ABC will be a source of great national strength.

“A great national campfire around which our stories can be told and can coalesce into a renovated national narrative about our future. A narrative able to draw all Australians a bit closer together to face up to and make sense of the disrupted times we are in.

“Such an investment will repay itself over and over and over again.

“I am confident that we at the ABC can make the case for it. The budgetary outlook is tight; however the rationale is plain.”

Mr Williams also spoke of his serious concerns about digital disruption and the “unforeseen and insufficiently contested consequences of digital technology which abounds around us”.

“Despite the best efforts of many in recent decades, it seems to me that the digital world has caused a fragmentation and dislocation of effort at the ABC that is failing to deliver what we

need,” he said.

“It has altered the personality, chemistry and character of our national debates in sometimes, indeed often, negative ways. It is time for refreshed purpose.

“Our community and nation deserve better, renewed performance horizons.”

Speaking about the wider impacts of the dominance of the big tech companies on the media landscape, Mr Williams said: “The flow of advertising revenues to Google, Facebook and others has been relentless and devastating in its consequences … our newspapers are thinner, our newsrooms sparser, our readers and viewers and listeners fewer, to our own Australian media.

“It’s no wonder that some have stated that the decline of commercial news has now reached a critical point and is now facing even more rapid decline.

“The devastation isn’t just about revenues and audiences. It has involved an assault on the moral resources that hold our society together. Including on the qualities good media organisations offer: objectivity and truth, without which democracy becomes impossible to sustain.”