And what if I don't like either choice?

I spoke earlier of the changes in the works at the ABC. Today, they have announced a number of changes in the services they will have on offer, including adding another channel and increasing the variety of programmes on offer. This sounds nice. After all, any free market economist will tell you that choice is good! However, markets work not just by offering you choices, but by rewarding producers who offer good choices and punishing producers who offer crappy choices, because after all, producing another option for you to choose among entails a cost. It's not the addition of more choices that drives markets to efficiency, it's the market process of entrepreneurs identifying an unmet demand that they can provide at a profit that drives markets to efficiency.

Sure, it's entirely possible that the new programming offered by the ABC could potentially earn a profit, and thus be efficient. It could be that there is an unmet demand for televised Australian ballet and opera, and the ABC is the entrepreneur that the market needs to provide this content. Or it could be that it simply is not worth the cost. My money is on the latter, and that we'll see the subsidy to the ABC rise as a result.

The $800,000,000 squiggle

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