No need for taxpayer-funded 24/7 "news" service

Here's a great article from Tim Wilson in The Australian about the ABC. I dunno who Tim Wilson is either but he makes a good point when he says:

Many Australians believe the popular myth that we need ABC television and radio to deliver high-quality news and current affairs because commercial stations will only deliver infomercial-based current affairs and populist news.

A taxpayer-funded ABC doesn't fill a market gap left by commercial networks -- it crowds them out of providing quality news and current affairs.

Commercial stations cannot reasonably compete for the high-quality news and current affairs market because they're playing on an unfair playing field against an ABC that doesn't have to worry about where its next buck is coming from.

The ABC is a tax-financed and tax-exempt organisation occupying the same market space that commercial operators could otherwise occupy if they were able to charge for the services they provide.

The crowding-out potential of the taxpayer-funded ABC is best demonstrated in the one major media market where it is absent -- morning newspapers.

The private sector is completely capable of delivering high-quality state-based and national newspapers at a price the market is prepared to pay.

But if the ABC started giving away high-quality morning newspapers, News Limited, owner of The Australian, and Fairfax would find their newspapers crowded out of the market by a taxpayer-funded alternative.

And by establishing a 24/7 news television station, the ABC is likely to crowd out the current commercial all-news channel, Sky News.

Sky News already provides a high-quality service, so there is no justification for tax dollars to be wasted on a market hole that doesn't need to plugged. In doing so, the ABC will effectively be engaging in government-sponsored predatory pricing.

By now announcing a 24/7 news channel, the ABC looks like it is using taxpayer dollars to seek revenge to crowd out Sky News on their own turf.

That's all it is folks. We don't need a taypayer-funded propaganda- I mean sorry news, organisation.

There would be a fair enough argument for public funding of the ABC if it were truly the beacon of quality journalism its utopian charter suggests it is. Fair enough if the ABC presented the facts and engaged different perspectives- even unconventional perspectives, on issues.


However, it is shown that the ABC is a self-serving bunch of ideologues who routinely abuse taxpayers by taking their money and running "the ABC line", the collective groupthink on most issues.