At a time when an unfriendly environment demands more tightly defined purposes and objectives, the ABC is trapped by anachronistic legislative provisions which demand that the Corporation be national yet regional, popular yet focused, comprehensive yet complementary. In Britain the BBC is able to meet similar responsibilities through a range of channels. Two national television networks, numerous national and regional radio stations, and greatly restricted commercial competition enable that Corporation to sustain a variety of audiences.2 ABC radio shares similar good fortune, with three national networks and a judicious mix of local and syndicated programming. If ABC television confines itself to cultural and educational programmes, the Corporation can be certain of low ratings, accusations of elitism and questions about why compulsory taxation should support a privileged minority of regular ABC viewers. If, on the other hand, ABC television seeks legitimacy through popularity, then it simply repeats the programming of commercial stations and becomes a threat to the private sector.
Government intervention is likely to follow.
Since politicians provide their budget, they are the final arbiters of success. But ABC legislation sends only confused signals. Performance indicators used by the private sector are inappropriate, yet no credible alternative exists. The ABC may be a 'public broadcaster', but its charter demands that it eschew a purely market-based assessment of what the public wants in favour of normative judgements about what the public needs. So what the Corporation should be televising is a guess.