Surviving the post-broadcast era: The international context for Australia’s ABC

Abstract

While much of the discussion of the current condition of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) has been very much located within the Australian context, there is some point to widening the frame and considering the situation of the ABC within a more international context. In many locations, the rationale for the public broadcaster – the provision of information, education and entertainment for the public good – has not easily survived what has been dubbed the post-broadcast era, increasingly shaped by commercialisation, neo-liberalism, de-regulation and privatisation. The tendencies in the Australian context are not as clear as the international ones, however, and so the comparison between the international and the national contexts frames the account developed by this article.