ABC chair Ita Buttrose needs to address several key areas

In many respects, the ABC has lost its way, and it will be up to Buttrose and her new managing director to put it back on course.

Ita Buttrose need not reinvent the wheel, but key areas of the national broadcaster require fixing. Picture: Adam Taylor

Appointments in public life in Australia are rarely greeted with the warm applause and enthusiasm that has been lavished on Ita Buttrose this week.

She ticks all the boxes we would expect for the chair of the billion-dollar-a-year taxpayer-funded ABC. It’s a cherished national institution and so is Ita.

She brings to the job vast media experience, a steely but calm management approach and an unrivalled connection with the public.

Her first job in media was as a copy girl at The Daily Telegraph aged 15. That’s more than six decades in newspapers, magazines, radio and television — a remarkable achievement.

I have observed her closely for decades. We clashed when I was the foundation editor of Australian Playboy, first published by Kerry Packer’s Australian Consolidated Press in 1978. Packer quietly put her in charge of the launch — a move that rankled with me on the basis that Playboy was a men’s magazine and what would Ita know about being a bloke?

She accused me of objecting because she was a woman. I denied that, although it may have had an element of truth for the reason mentioned above, but I had to ­concede her role was legitimate because at that time I had no experience in magazine publishing.

Later, my drivetime program followed hers on radio 2GB. She was the ultimate professional but that year of broadcasting was unsuccessful for both of us.

Now, decades on, she must turn her attention to a whole new set of boxes that require ticking. In many respects, the ABC has lost its way, and it will be up to Buttrose and her new managing director, soon to be chosen, to bring it back on course.

The future direction of the ABC is not up for grabs. Her job is not to reinvent the wheel; it is to adhere to the directions clearly spelled out in the ABC charter — a legislated framework that must be Buttrose’s touchstone throughout her five-year appointment.

Paraphrased, it will be her job to guide the ABC as it provides innovative and comprehensive broadcasting services of a high standard that contribute to a sense of national identity; that inform, entertain and educate, reflecting the cultural diversity of the Australian community.

She must also meet the ABC’s responsibility to provide an independent national broadcasting service with a balance between programs of wide appeal and specialised programs, taking account of services provided by the commercial and community segments sectors of the broadcasting sector.

These are broad parameters and achieving them will not require a revolution. But it will require a lot of tweaking and, in some cases, up-ending long-held cultural dogma within a sclerotic bureaucracy.

These are some of the boxes that require ticking.

Editorial standards: This is an area where those leading the news division seem to have given up. Every night the flagship 7pm news script is riddled with grammatical errors that should have been picked up by a half-competent subeditor. Reporters doing pieces to camera appear to have no concept of grammar, repeatedly misusing words or misplacing them.

There was a time when the ABC news gave us the facts and summed up the day’s events here and around the world. In recent years, the trustworthy gravitas of the news has given way to the commercial template of crime and traffic accidents driven by a “if it bleeds, it leads” mentality. SBS has taken over as the most ­reliable and comprehensive ­national and international news provider. Buttrose should immediately focus on wresting back that mantle.

Balance: Bias is often in the eye of the beholder and there will forever be debate about whether particular news items or current affairs discussion panels are biased. That goes with the territory, but it demands a scrupulous approach to do everything possible to avoid the charge.

Buttrose, her board and her managing director must launch a crusade against bias by demanding that every news item and every discussion panel is balanced. The taxpayer pays for the ABC and therefore the wide spectrum of views within the Australian community need to be respected.

It is too easy within the “progressive” culture of the ABC for panel shows such as The Drum to become echo chambers of indulgent groupthink. This is not to say there is a need for equal time police; rather that there should be a recognition that alternative opinions are legitimate.

Australian content: According to figures released last year, the ABC’s investment in local content fell in the two previous years — documentaries and factual by 55 per cent, drama by 22 per cent and comedy by 17 per cent.

This indicates the ABC is falling down in the area it repetitively highlights through its on-air promotions: it is our ABC and it tells our stories. If we accept that claim, we must also add the rider that it could do more. Much more.

There is no question audiences love our own stories, and while local drama is expensive to produce, the return in terms of ratings makes it worthwhile. But too often the nightly program schedule is filled with BBC-sourced drama. As Buttrose comes to grips with the annual budget of more than $1 billion, she should explore ways of directing more funds to local productions and co-productions with international producers.

Digital: There are those who have argued that the ABC should not be in the digital space, but if they ever had a point, they have well and truly missed the boat. Not only is it unthinkable for any modern media organisation to eschew digital delivery, but the ABC charter, amended in 2010, now mandates digital services. The issue is how far the ABC should go. It has all the aces in its hand — being taxpayer funded, it does not need advertising to offset the cost of its services and it can offer them free to everyone, without subscription. This gives it an enormous advantage over commercial services, not by robbing them of advertising, but by robbing them of consumer eyeballs which advertisers seek.

It is hard to make a case against the ABC having a news website but questions must be asked about its so-called lifestyle sites, which are in direct competition with commercial sites.

Buttrose, who has worked in commercial media all her life, should promptly draw a line and decree that the ABC is not in the business of putting commercial websites out of business.

Managing director: One of Buttrose’s first tasks will be to oversee the appointment of a new managing director. The frontrunner is David Anderson, who has been acting in the position since the sacking of Michelle Guthrie. If there is much to be said for appointing as chair someone who is steeped in media, there is much to recommend someone like Anderson, who knows the ABC intimately.

But highly credentialed outsiders are also available. Anita Jacoby, the former business partner of Andrew Denton, is one name frequently mentioned. Would it be too radical to have two women running the show?

Funding: Buttrose said in her press conference this week that she would not be afraid to ask for more funds if she felt there were a need. That’s typical Buttrose and it’s one of the reasons she has been hired: she has a steely resolve when ­required.

But her starting point must be that she already has more than $1bn at her disposal annually — more than commercial networks and, I argue, more than enough.

Sure, there are a lot of services to provide, but $1bn is a lot of dosh and the key factor must be that it is spent efficiently.

Buttrose would be well advised to spend what she has efficiently before thinking of asking for more.