Trond writes:
>While in NZ, we discovered with increasing depression that *all* TV channels
>were commercial. And news and current affairs had attained the corresponding
>character: Americanized predictable establishment blah blah with
>"distinguished" male anchorperson and ditto female "representative"
>business-suited partner. And commercial breaks. And even more commercial
>breaks. In what once was a public broadcasting channel. Coming back to
>Australia, the difference really struck us, between a wholly commercialised
>broadcasting system, and a system where at least one big and one lesser
>channel (ABC and SBS) do some credit to what TV journalism ought to be.
I'm with you all the way on this, Trond. Simply put, the lesson from this is that commercial broadcasting is not something for which you need private ownership. Commercial broadcasting is simply to be defined as broadcasting with commercials on it - no matter who or what 'runs' the channel.
I don't often get to blow Oz's trumpet on these channels, but I'm absolutely convinced that, with radio thrown in, Oz enjoys the best broadcasting system in the Anglophone world. It's all down to public service broadcasting and the bleedin' obvious proposition that a lot of channels is not the same as a lot of choice - in fact, more likely the opposite. As the majority of Strines agree with this, even the thugs on the hill are finding it difficult to kill off this last bastion of liberal democratic discourse - and the object of its focus, the citizen.
That's not to say they won't do it, of course - but as you say, that rather depends on us.
Cheers, Rob.