The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has just announced that they are revamping their logo. I'm glad they issued a press release because I might never have noticed, regardless of what the new logo ultimately will be. The simple fact is that I almost never watch the ABC or the ABC2. I think in the past year my wife and I combined to watch one episode of Summer Heights High. Yet how much do I pay for it? According to their financials, the ABC lost around $800M last year (which the government chipped in to make up the difference), which makes my household bill at least $80, and probably much more. So for the pleasure of watching the ABC, I pay approximately $80 per hour. Meanwhile, I've never paid a dime to Seven, Nine, or Ten, and yet get a lot more viewing pleasure out of those channels.
There is very little justification for the government to provide goods and services that a market would provide anyhow, and markets have absolutely no problems providing the goods the ABC provides (radio, television, and internet programming). Moreover, the evidence is that the ABC does what they do rather poorly, routinely getting about half the viewership of the "big-three" channels. In the modern world, the only reason why the government should own any media outlets is that they want to be able to engage in thought control, like the third world military rulers and middle eastern theocratic dictators who control the press for that very reason.
Privatize the ABC. Not only would you save the taxpayers some money, but whoever takes over the ABC couldn't help but improve the programming, giving consumers a better variety of programs for their enjoyment
There is very little justification for the government to provide goods and services that a market would provide anyhow, and markets have absolutely no problems providing the goods the ABC provides (radio, television, and internet programming). Moreover, the evidence is that the ABC does what they do rather poorly, routinely getting about half the viewership of the "big-three" channels. In the modern world, the only reason why the government should own any media outlets is that they want to be able to engage in thought control, like the third world military rulers and middle eastern theocratic dictators who control the press for that very reason.
Privatize the ABC. Not only would you save the taxpayers some money, but whoever takes over the ABC couldn't help but improve the programming, giving consumers a better variety of programs for their enjoyment
2 comments:
How do you get $80/hour for the cost of the ABC to your household? I get ~20c a day. Just curious.
(I get about ~5c a day for the cost of government regulation/subsidies for commercial stations, though the raw figures are hide to find).
$80/hour because I only watched one hour of ABC over the course of the year!
You are right, however, in pointing out that I failed to take into account the cost of regulating and subsidizing the networks...however I have no doubts that those networks would continue to exist absent the subsidies and regulations. In fact, if the cost of compliance with the regulations exceed the revenue from the subsidies, we would at a minimum see better quality networks, and if the costs of compliance are really high, perhaps even more networks forming.
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