Australian stories are in danger of disappearing as the digital revolution renders local content unprofitable, the ABC’s managing director, Mark Scott, has warned.
“With the gutting of newsrooms, with the diminished investment in investigative reporters and in content specialists and local and regional newsrooms, there are some burning questions awaiting answers,” Scott said in a speech at Macquarie University on Tuesday night.
“We may have plenty to read and watch as audience members, but is it the kind of content that makes us informed citizens; that reveals what some people want concealed; that holds the powerful to account? That helps Australians understand each other better and the world in which we live?”
Scott argued that as commercial TV operators abandon quality drama for cheaper reality TV and sport, people face a world in which screens are swamped by local reality, sport and US content via services such as Netflix.
“Rational commercial television executives with no obligation to anyone but their shareholders and stakeholders will make rational decisions to invest as much as needed in those areas that will drive audiences and ratings; advertising share and revenues; profitability and share price,” Scott said.
“Reality franchises and premium sport make more sense than the risky investment in drama and comedy.”
Scott, who announced this week he would step down in June next year, said the ABC could not be the only place where unique Australian drama and non-fiction is made, and that new models of funding needed urgently to be found.
“The idea of a digital content fund, requiring new digital content companies, many of which dwarf their Australian competitors, to contribute a percentage of revenue to support local content requirements has been proposed,” Scott said. “Let’s debate that.”
Scott said the era of profitable Australian media companies was over and now the power lay with new digital players Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple, and they were not going to pay for their content.
The broadcasting chief used the inaugural Brian Johns AO Lecture to make an impassioned plea for lawmakers to ensure Australian screen culture survives.
If we don’t act now there would be a big impact on our society and far-reaching consequences “that go to our sense of citizenship and identity”, he said.
Scott predicted that the TV industry, which has already had its licence fees halved, would call for even less regulation in coming years and without legislated content requirements they would drop drama.
“Even with licence fee relief, the new competitive and financial pressures are going to make it even harder for the commercial television operators to finance the telling of Australian stories,” Scott said.
But he was pessimistic about the prospect of reform, saying powerful media moguls appeared to easily sway governments.
“I have heard politicians say they are ready to legislate once media executives have agreed on a course of action.” he said. “Giving the animosity and competitive egos that linger in this sector, this is an unlikely prospect, this millennium at least.
“When policy reform can be stymied by lunches in New York and dinners in Broome then you know that the cycle of inaction will most likely continue. When it comes to media reforms, it has ever been thus.”
