SPAA 2012: Gillian Armstrong says ABC is too ratings-driven
Delivering the Hector Crawford Memorial Lecture at the Screen Producer's Conference, Gillian Armstrong has a wish for your ABC.
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Award-winning filmmaker Gillian Armstrong says the ABC is too ratings-driven and should broadcast more Arts, animated, shorts and single documentaries.
Delivering the Hector Crawford Memorial Lecture at the Screen Producer’s Association of Australia Conference in Melbourne yesterday, Armstrong spoke about a number of topics including the need for Australian stories, Aussie humour, government funding and more.
One of her topics was a “Wish List” and at the top of her list was the ABC. Here is an excerpt of her lecture:
Why does it have to prove itself with ratings? Please?
This obsession in the media and politicians of both sides. And if The Seven Thirty report has given a politician a hard time, lets not punish the whole channel and cut its funds and distort its board for the next six years!! Its our ABC.
Surely the National Broadcaster was set up to be able to do things that are not necessarily commercial. To take risks and provide programs that would otherwise not exist? In the public interest? It should be able to do this without feeling its funding will be cut. It’s not selling a product. It is ours.
(Perhaps let’s not even show its ratings unless they are winners!) Why can’t we lobby for its financial independence? It should be the leader in Children’s TV, in experimental, in documentary, in Arts, as well a News and Current Affairs. It should run our award winning shorts and animations.
So why are we now only given a half hour slot for arts? Surely the ABC should be running a weekly in depth program to at least let us all know what is going on in Theatre, music and the Arts throughout Australia? It might actually rate if run in a better slot than Sunday afternoon!
Why is the ABC now no longer commissioning in depth documentaries on important social issues but only reacting to what is brought to it? No longer leading and creating programs that may not be sexy issues? How wrong that it is so ratings driven, that is it no longer buying one off docos because the current feeling is that Only series rate! Perhaps put six together with a thematic connection?
There are many good programmers and passionate people at the ABC and SBS but this is a noose around their neck. Ratings. A political noose that is affecting what is made and what we are allowed to see.
You can read it in full here.
7 Responses
“the ABC is too ratings-driven and should broadcast more Arts, animated, shorts and single documentaries.” Translation: the ABC are spending money on things ordinary people want to watch, and should stop this immediately. More money should be spent on unwatchable drivel about existential angst among teenage anti-whaling protesters derived from their lack of tweeting facilities in the Southern Ocean.
I’ve enjoyed much of Ms Armstrong’s work but she’s off her trolley here. Johnsmith has basically said everything I would have.
Most importantly, the ABC shouldn’t be as concerned about ratings as the commercial networks, but there is no point broadcasting a program that hardly anyone will watch (ABC24 notwithstanding, apparently).
Case-in-point (for @mainlander), Strictly Speaking was pulled because it was dull and dreary, and not enough people were watching.
Have any shows actually been canned by the ABC for not rating high enough?
Very old fashioned view of the world anyway. The ABC leads the way with iView and am sure they aren’t pouring over the live viewer ratings every morning. They have it set up so people can seek out their shows in ways that best suits them. I watch way more ABC content as a result.
And please spare us hours of Sunday afternoon ‘Arts’ reporting! If you want to know what the various symphony orchestras, ballet and theatre companies have coming up then just google it!
She is going to be crushed to find out that The Bill isn’t on anymore.
Yep, I don’t know what she’s on about. She may have a point with regards to documentaries, I don’t know, but there are shows commissioned by the ABC that you would never see anywhere else. And ABC2 has a lot of more experimental stuff on it. What is she talking about?
I don’t know whether the ABC is ratings driven or what, all I do know is that they are currently screening some of the best shows on TV, and the fact that they are consistently above one of the commercial channels in ratings only shows that the public is appreciating this. A show like Redfern Now is surely a “risk”, as are many of the other programmes they are currently showing. I’m afraid Ms Armstrong has lost the plot, or just is living ten years ago. Yay the ABC you’re leading the way!
Of she doesn’t watch TV or care about TV viewers.
She just wants more taxpayer money for herself and her friends.
It’s concerned with ratings because it’d be inane to spend millions of dollars making programs that nobody watches.
And it should be the leader in children’s television? Please, it already is! ABC2 shows animations for most of the day and ABC3 is exclusively for children. Show me another FTA network that does that.
And it should be the leader in news? Once again… two (soon three) full bulletins on ABC1, rolling news on ABC News 24, ABC News Radio, 7.30, Four Corners, etc.
And as for investigating social issues, what about the Four Corners reports on underprivileged children? Live animal exports? These things weren’t ‘brought to it’. Nobody was talking about these issues before the ABC raised them. Same with Lateline’s coverage of the sex abuse issues. There wouldn’t be a Royal Commission without Lateline.
Let’s not take ABC back a decade. It’s viewership is at an all time high because people love what’s on the ABC. If it’s about the broadcaster being ‘OUR ABC’ then, for my 7 cents a day, I’d rather good shows and high ratings than obscurity shown in prime time.
And who calls it ‘The 7.30 Report’ anyway? That show’s long gone!
The ABC is working wonders. Has Ms Armstrong ever watched it?