Right Pulse

Who exactly runs the ABC? Taxpayers via the Communications Minister, or Mr. Scott the CEO of ABC?

Mr Scott urged the Rudd government not to put the ABC’s international broadcast operations out to tender at the end of its current five-year contract.

Sky News Australia is lobbying the government to create an open tender process for the $20m contract to run the Australia Network, the diplomatic broadcasting service controlled by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The ABC’s contract to run Australia Network expires next year.

In a speech at Macquarie University three months ago titled “A global ABC: Soft diplomacy and the world of international broadcasting”, Mr Scott said that “using the media underpins soft diplomacy” and that China and India were firmly in Australia Network’s sights.

This just shows how in the pocket the ABC is with the ALP. The ABC basically wants to be the broadcaster of government policy – preferably it seems of a centre-left agenda – while using state power to drive out competitors that may threaten their left-wing ‘soft diplomacy’ agenda.