"In the beginning"

Disclaimer

The views expressed in this blog are not necessarily the views of the blog management, (on the other hand, they are not necessarily not the views of the blog management).

No effort has been made to stay within the bounds of the truth in this blog as it has always been the view of the management that the truth should never be allowed to stand in the way of a good story.

Monday, July 16, 2007

ABC Radio & Television

ABC Radio and ABC Television.


I chose these images at random because they seemed to fit the time scale of the ABC better than any of the more modern ones I have.
Particularly the devastating experience of having to shoot starving stock during droughts that plague our country.















Australian Broadcasting Commission, this body is funded by the Australian
Government and as such is free to air and free of commercial content, the other
radio stations, AM and FM, and other Television Networks all rely on advertising
revenue to stay afloat.

ABC Television had its 50th birthday recently and ABC Radio had its 75th birthday on July 8th here in Queensland, (Ed note; commercial Television was launched in Melbourne and Sydney early in 1956 just in time for the Melbourne Olympics.)

England has its BBC which is also government funded, unlike the American ABC
which is another commercial network.

The history of ABC Radio in particular has encompassed everything that our nation has stood for over the last 75 years, with coverage of sporting events of every description, some really long running serials (soaps) like “The Lawson’s” and “Blue Hills”, Gardening, Talk-back, some ground breaking Comedy programs, and lots of programming that the commercial stations don’t want anything to do with.

The ABC is “sort of affectionately” known as “Auntie” much in the manner of an elderly spinster aunt is thought to be a tad old fashioned and prim.

There is almost a pride in stating that you only watch ABC television, and while its true there have been some excellent programs, there has also been an inordinate amount of crap (Can’t Remember Anything Positive) as well.

But it can be a bit irritating to be told , in that holier than thee tone, that we only watch/listen to the ABC by people who are trying desperately to appear as intellectuals.

Having said that, there are good programs on both ABC TV and Radio, it’s the snob factor that gets irritating.

“Happy Birthday’s Auntie.”







8 comments:

kenju said...

Peter, I love your acronym words for crap. I'll have to remember that!

Jack K. said...

Happy Birthday's Auntie.

In the US we have our Public Broadcasting System (PBS) TV
and National Public Radio (NPR). They are federally funded. There have been efforts to censor what they do based upon political views of the world.

Jamie Dawn said...

PBS and NPR here in the US, as Jack K said.

I'm not a fan of the gov't running TV or Radio. I don't trust their judgment on what makes for good, worthy programming.

CRAP abounds aplenty here as well.

Puss-in-Boots said...

Happy Birthday Auntie ABC. I watch a lot of ABC and I also watch the commercial channels as well.

What I like about the ABC is that, even though it's Government funded, censorship has a light hand on the programming. Of course being free from commercials is pretty good too.

Some of it is crap, but other stuff is pretty damn good, too.

Walker said...

Happy Birthday ABC

We have the CBC here which is government funded but does show some commerciaals but no where near the other privatley owned channels.

Each country should have their own channel to show national programming something which helps the young learn about the past of where they live and help boost national pride.

Rachel said...

Happy Birthday Auntie! I don't like the snob factor either, and we have plenty of crap!!

wazza said...

Gidday Peter,

What I like about the ABC is that they have the funds (sometimes) to create some damn good series and documentaries that the commercial channels wouldn't have the "guts" to do, so good on them and may we have another 50 years of "Auntie".

Lee said...

Good old Auntie...I'm a regular watcher and listener. Happy Birthday, Auntie!