Leading the ABC into the mainstream and future

Ita Buttrose was confirmed yesterday as Scott Morrison’s “captain’s pick” to be the new chairwoman of the ABC, arguably the nation’s most important cultural institution. Ms Buttrose comes to the role at an awkward time for the public broadcaster, following the departure of its leadership team of chairman Justin Milne and managing director Michelle Guthrie within days of each other. To quote Oscar Wilde: “To lose one parent … may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.” The ABC was left reeling last September after Ms Guthrie was sacked and Mr Milne was forced to resign after a controversy erupted over political interference; a legal battle goes on. The Prime Minister said Ms Buttrose “would put viewers first”, citing her stellar career as an editor of mainstream newspapers and magazines, publisher and broadcaster. Her focus must be to rein in the ABC’s wayward culture, to provide stable leadership, to run the business in line with its charter obligations and to prepare it for the future.

Although the challenges the ABC faces are vast — way beyond the disruption to traditional media from technological change and globalisation — Ms Buttrose comes to the task with many advantages. She is a successful board chair, an astute manager and has a robust personality, shaped by her journalism and broad ties to the community. Ms Buttrose has political nous: she chaired the national advisory council on AIDS in the 1980s, and has been an advocate for vulnerable older people. She was 2013 Australian of the Year. The Ita brand carries a surfeit of goodwill across the nation, especially among the ABC’s core audiences. Has there ever been an ABC chairman, managing director or general manager with a higher public profile than any of its on-air presenters or journalists? She is unlikely to be insecure and search for the love of the ABC staff collective.

Ms Buttrose embodies the “sensible” and “practical” themes the Prime Minister has embraced in his broader political messaging. Her first strategic and leadership responsibility is to choose a new managing director. “It’s time to get the ABC functioning again with proper, stable management and good, frank discussion between the chair and whoever is the managing director,” Ms Buttrose said. “If there’s not a close relationship between the chair and the managing director, you cannot make an organisation work efficiently and well.” Her appointment may actually attract a better class of applicant for the managing director’s role. The dysfunctional relationship between the previous “parents”, to recall Wilde, should serve as an example to the eventual new leadership team of what not to do at the ABC.

The incoming chairwoman declared she would not be cowed by politicians or critics. Ms Buttrose said 80 per cent of Australians believed the ABC was unbiased; the same proportion say they trust ABC news more than any other news source. It’s true there are excellent reporters and correspondents, mainly in the current affairs realm, breaking stories and providing audiences with original insights. Given its reach, large resourcing, access and talent, the news division punches well below its weight. But digital offerings, a key growth area, do not match the quality of ABC radio and TV services and are cannibalising the news platforms of The Guardian and what used to be known as Fairfax. The ABC is culturally narrow, inner-urban and progressive, and its younger reporters and producers need strong leadership from editorial line managers. With many regional and rural commercial media outlets in peril, it’s worrying the ABC is so heavily concentrated in Ultimo and Southbank, and that resources are being run down in regional Queensland. The role of ABC editor-in-chief, part of the managing director’s responsibility, has recently been captured by the Left or farmed out to a motley clique of dour bureaucrats.

Ms Buttrose acknowledges, as she must given the turmoil, there is room for improvement. As a $1.1 billion-a-year market failure broadcaster, guided by a charter and funded by taxpayers, the ABC has a unique role, encompassing more than news services; it has an educative and soft power function, as well as a role in promoting music, drama and performing arts. It needs to better focus on developing the writers, technicians and artists of the future. Three Triple J franchises, however, is an indulgence. The ABC Life digital product is a dud. What territory does Ms Buttrose think the broadcaster should be in, given the squeeze on public funding? Clearly, the ABC can’t be, and was never intended to be, all things to all people. Nor should it mindlessly chase ratings and clicks.

The ABC has become an unwieldy beast; it’s too big to fail, maybe too big to succeed. Defining the ABC’s core business within the current funding regime should be Ms Buttrose’s key priority. She has the mettle and media expertise to lead the ABC through a period of rapid change. Bill Shorten may not have been consulted by his political rival on the appointment but, should he win office, he would be wise to give Ms Buttrose the space to pursue a reform program.