Kim Williams: “I want the ABC to go after younger viewers”
ABC Chair calls for "renewal and re-investment" and says the broadcaster needs to re-connect with younger audiences.
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ABC Chair Kim Williams has called for “renewal and re-investment” in the broadcaster as it looks to re-energise its news and cultural role in Australia.
Speaking at the National Press Club he said ABC had lost one-third of its funding in real terms when its services were needed more than ever before.
“In the last decade alone, our operating revenue from government has fallen by 13.7 per cent in real terms or, put in a simple number, an annual reduction of $150 million,” he said.
“When public investment in the ABC is discussed, it is often observed that its annual budget is over a billion dollars. This is true and the Board takes the responsibility of investing this money wisely very seriously. The fact remains, however, that the budget allocation has not kept pace with rising costs.
“Funding the ABC represents a tiny proportion of the budget — and it has been getting smaller. In just this century, we have declined from an overall share of Commonwealth outlays of 0.31% in 2000 — 2001 to 0.13% in today’s outlays — a dramatic decline by any measure.”
He advocated for “extra trusted, high-quality news services, with an expanded fact-checking capability across all platforms …more and better children’s programs… more and better documentaries, arts, drama and comedy programming.”
Williams also noted there were “too few” younger viewers of ABC content.
“As Tom Gleeson’s scriptwriters at Hard Quiz forever remind us, the ABC’s audience tends to be older than average. Some of us with less hair even than he has,” he said.
“This has been the case for so long now that people think it is inevitable and irreversible.
“But it is only inevitable if we don’t do anything to reverse it.
“Now I admit I am given to saying there is a new fifty-year-old and sixty-year-old born every minute. However, I want the ABC to go after younger viewers, listeners and readers on every platform as a vital part of our civic duty.
“Not because I don’t appreciate the audiences we already have ¬– we love our audiences — but as a matter of intergenerational equity. The ABC is for all our citizens, no matter what their age. And because reconnecting with the young is now an urgent democratic and cultural imperative. It is a core aspect of our being owned by all Australians.
“I said earlier that we need to do more than create lifeboats to prevent young Australians from drowning intellectually in the polluted tide of disinformation and misinformation swamping their screens. We must give them a rudder and engine so they can steer a course of safety and help us construct a future that is safe for democracy.
“This means trying new approaches to include them in our national conversations.
“I would personally like to see the ABC attract and train a new generation of young journalists who understand intuitively how their contemporaries consume and think about the media, and know best how to reach them with appropriate expression and perspective on their favoured and rapidly changing platforms.
“And I would like to help young and old Australians alike to become more media literate and even media savvy, able to better discern truth in a world of lies. The long-term survival of the idea of the objective truth, which George Orwell once — maybe prophetically — told us is in danger of fading out of the world, rests in the hands of the young. We can do a great deal with our schools to make this happen.”
19 Responses
His ” spontaneous ” comments on Joe Rogan at the National Press Club where he claimed he didn’t know much about the show and then rabbited on for around two minutes, personally attacking Rogan’s character spoke volumes.
The ABC brand just doesn’t work for younger people. And by young people I mean under 40s, aside from the ones watching Bluey with their kids. The fact he drops the writers of Hard Quiz – a show for old nerds – as if they’re tuned into the now generation says everything.
I don’t believe Kim or the ABC would actually be willing to make the kind of shows those viewers would want to watch, so they’re better off sticking to what they do.
Countdown special reminded us when it can work, but that era and media landscape has evolved.
that’s decades ago, and its not going to come back.. the youth don’t even know what an aerial port on a television is, nor do they care. its over. that’s the hard facts.
No need to limit ABC to an aerial port. iview streams same as Netflix. I agree Countdown won’t come back (which is why I framed it in the way I did) but it reminds us such things are possible. Humans connect with content, so it’s just a question of what and how. Triple J? More comedy? ABC TikTok? I think it would be good for ABC to attack it rather than saying they are “too hard basket.”
Kids aren’t likely to switch to a new app just because it’s from the ABC network. (Unless it’s mandatory – and who in their right mind would want to enforce that????) Their preferences and choices are already established. ABC would be better off focusing on serving its existing audience.
Legacy media has not realised they’re the Blockbuster of the 2024 era. Until they do, they’re just spiraling further into irrelevance.
Their Charter notes for All Australians. People connect with content and will seek it out if it is desirable enough.
won’t happen the kids are too busy watching the epic Joe Rogan ;)
for me where the ABC has lost it way is by having no sport there saturday sport offerings when the Sydney Club Rugby the Queensland Cup Rugby League the VFL SANFL and the WAFL the home state ratings were good but the national ratings early weekday mornings were better commercial TV have sliced and Diced these sports to be un watchable
When does the effort begin? 2026?
All the other channels cater for the younger crowd. Why can’t one TV channel be a bit more for the older crowd? Most of the shows are dreadful, like Love Island to name just one. The ABC was for kids once too, in the good old days but that’s fallen by the wayside. I find the ABC interesting and enjoy the difference in shows. The ABC mostly has mature shows which is all we seem to have for us older viewers. Repeats of older programs on a couple of the off channels once considered ‘the best’ are the only other programs we have. But that’s just me.
I don’t think ABC would ever finance a reality television show, those things are so expensive to make they require product placement from corporations to do, that’s against ABC protocool.
They already have, it’s just about framing it in an ABC-friendly way. They also acknowledge BBC makes Strictly Come Dancing and MasterChef.
Sylvania Waters. Joint venture between ABC and BBC.
So does that mean more funding for children’s programming? Could we see the return of someone hosting wrapper segments with children’s programming in between (like The Afternoon Show or Rollercoaster)
Or maybe more shows like Countdown or Recovery.
Or maybe even they’ll re-air Doctor Who (the original series) and The Goodies (two shows you really wouldn’t classify as children’s shows, but have played on children’s blocks)
Love that you think that adding hosts to linear broadcasts and airing 50 year old shows are the answer
Well said.
Let’s give them: Sitting Next To Each Other In School at First Sight, Big Teacher, and The Great Race Around the Playground.
With a good funny host, wrapper segments can be as memorable as linear broadcasts
I watched the Afternoon Show when I was a kid, and I loved Michael Tunn (I thought he was kewl)
And while they weren’t ABC personalities, a lot of people from my generation just loved both Agro as well as Jade and Ryan.
What I meant by the latter (shows like Countdown and Recovery) are music-oreinted shows. They can have a fresh show like those. get someone from Triple J, etc.
These days, I’d much rather see the ABC put its relatively limited funds for children’s TV into decent quality programs of a proper length which can travel across multiple platforms.
IMO, the ABC’s priority needs to be somehow finding or creating a Bluey-like hit for primary school kids, especially as people born around the time that show started would now be outgrowing the cartoon dogs.
Those 2-3 minute wraparound segments are very much an “old TV” product which in many cases, seemed to have a lifespan of little over half a decade (with some presenters of these things only lasting 2-3 years or less) before their core audience moved on.