{"id":32466,"date":"2017-06-19T06:00:01","date_gmt":"2017-06-18T20:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=32466"},"modified":"2017-06-19T13:53:00","modified_gmt":"2017-06-19T03:53:00","slug":"abc-gets-wrong-south-pacific-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/abc-gets-wrong-south-pacific-service\/","title":{"rendered":"The ABC gets it wrong on its South Pacific service"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-32467\" src=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/RA_promo.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"335\" height=\"390\" \/>The technical bastardry of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in degrading its shortwave broadcasts to the South Pacific has been starkly revealed. The bloody-mindedness helps explain the dumb decision to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/silencing-australias-shortwave-voice-south-pacific\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">turn off<\/a> Australia\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/dumb-oz-decision-south-pacific\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">shortwave<\/a> service that broadcasts to northern Australia and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/smart-stuff-shortwave-south-pacific\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">South Pacific<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The reveal happened in Parliament House last Friday, when the Senate Communications Committee took <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aph.gov.au\/Parliamentary_Business\/Committees\/Senate\/Environment_and_Communications\/Shortwaveradio\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">evidence on a draft Bill<\/a> that would require the ABC to restore the shortwave services it killed on January 31.<\/p>\n<p>After heavyweight evidence from Radio Australia\u2019s old shortwave guru Nigel Holmes, Foreign Affairs and the ABC, the Committee\u2019s final witness was earnest, if not expert: \u2018twas me\u2014my <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aph.gov.au\/DocumentStore.ashx?id=c07e0229-dfb8-4c02-8f44-bc511db457b4&amp;subId=511059\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">submission is here<\/a> (PDF).<\/p>\n<p>Foreign Affairs wimped out, saying that ending shortwave was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aph.gov.au\/DocumentStore.ashx?id=e4e5c567-6dc8-40ae-8e7a-fd67821d4a0e&amp;subId=511295\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">all the ABC\u2019s own work<\/a>.\u00a0 Echoing other submissions, DFAT described ABC Pacific services as:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">a valuable channel for giving the Pacific news, Australian perspectives and content<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">advancing Australian public diplomacy: \u2018We note that the annual operating cost of the ABC\u2019s former shortwave service was an order of magnitude greater than the combined public diplomacy budgets of all of our Pacific posts.\u2019<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">delivering warnings and updates during emergencies.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>DFAT said the South Pacific wants shortwave, even though the ABC claims Pacific audiences have \u2018moved away\u2019 from shortwave.<\/p>\n<p>The ABC <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aph.gov.au\/DocumentStore.ashx?id=fd9ae65b-79e6-48ac-a3cc-b46d91acfea2&amp;subId=511100\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">submission<\/a> opposed the Bill to restore shortwave, saying it would:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">impinge on ABC independence by directing the Corporation to use broadcast technologies that have limited and diminishing audiences<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">impose significant costs for shortwave<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">oblige the ABC to deliver Pacific language services that haven\u2019t been provided in the past.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The first point is the key, going to important questions about the ABC\u2019s role and what it should do in the Pacific. These separate but vital issues lead directly to what the Parliament expects of the ABC in the Charter given it under law.<\/p>\n<p>The second point is merely the ABC objecting to doing the duty it has performed for decades. The ABC claims the cost would double from $2 million to $4 million\u2014thus\u00a0 confirming how it has been running down the service.<\/p>\n<p>The third point is odd. The <a href=\"http:\/\/parlinfo.aph.gov.au\/parlInfo\/download\/legislation\/bills\/s1055_first-senate\/toc_pdf\/1701720.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">proposed Act<\/a>, sponsored by Senator Xenophon, calls on the ABC to maintain a shortwave service for PNG and the Islands, with \u2018programs in languages appropriate for the 19 countries to which they are broadcast\u2019. The ABC claims it\u2019s presently giving the South Pacific a good service, with broadcasts in English and Tok Pisin for PNG (after closing the last vestige of the French Pacific service in February). If the ABC believes its own quality assurances, it can give an instant affirmative answer to the legislative demand for appropriate languages. Or is the ABC conceding that it\u2019s not giving good\/appropriate service?<\/p>\n<p>Returning to point one takes us to the Holy Grail: the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.legislation.gov.au\/Details\/C2014C00721\">ABC Charter<\/a>, enshrined in the ABC Act. Rather than impinging on ABC independence, the Parliament, which passed the Act, is telling the ABC to meet the first two elements of its Charter. The Senate is calling the ABC to account for failing its Charter responsibilities.<\/p>\n<p>Under that 1983 Act, the ABC must give Australians \u2018comprehensive broadcasting services\u2019. \u00a0Killing shortwave to the Northern Territory fails that \u2018comprehensive\u2019 test. The ABC isn\u2019t meeting its obligation to everyone across this wide brown land.<\/p>\n<p>The Charter instructs the ABC \u2018to transmit to countries outside Australia\u2019. In an un-Charterish manner, the ABC is steadily gutting its South Pacific service. Killing shortwave highlights the Pacific withdrawal, as the ABC shrinks away from its international responsibilities.<\/p>\n<p>When the ABC lost the contract to run the <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/scrapping-the-australia-network-affects-more-than-the-abc-26687\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Australia Network<\/a> TV service in 2014, the blame lay with the Abbott Government, which terminated a 10 year contract after one year. The ABC then compounded the damage with its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/muting-australias-regional-voice\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">bad, sad and mad gutting<\/a> of Radio Australia as it terminated Oz Network.<\/p>\n<p>On the decline of shortwave, the ABC offers assertions but zero evidence. For detailed discussion of the continuing utility of shortwave, see the submission by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aph.gov.au\/DocumentStore.ashx?id=05460a3d-58ca-416c-971a-8fcdc2546c92&amp;subId=511076\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nigel Holmes<\/a>, a shortwave guru who was RA\u2019s transmission manager for 23 years.<\/p>\n<p>Holmes explodes the ABC\u2019s wispy techno-babble smokescreen, showing how the ABC deliberately degraded the strength and performance of its shortwave signal. From 2015, the ABC turned off half its transmitters at Shepparton, Australia\u2019s last shortwave station. This degradation had the predictable effect\u2014desired by the ABC\u2014of halving signal strength reception across the west and south-west Pacific.<\/p>\n<p>The ABC is right that shortwave audiences have declined\u2014a trend pushed by ABC bastardry against its own shortwave signal. After the switch-off in January, the Shepparton operator, Broadcast Australia International, announced its intention to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sheppnews.com.au\/2017\/05\/11\/88161\/radio-australia-for-sale\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">sell the Shepparton site<\/a>. If those transmitters are demolished, it\u2019d cost $60 million to create a replacement shortwave facility.<\/p>\n<p>Many other players see a shortwave future. As the ABC exits the South Pacific, China Radio International is making large investments, snapping up any shortwave slots becoming available and building new transmitters.<\/p>\n<p>Another way of demolishing the ABC utility argument is to ask what\u2019s changed in the South Pacific to make shortwave obsolete? The big Ds are exactly as they\u2019ve always been: big Distances, big economic Development problems, and regular natural Disasters.<\/p>\n<p>In villages across the Islands and in the mountains of PNG, people aren\u2019t suddenly logging on to the internet. Mobile telephones are a significant new force, but phones don\u2019t wipe away all Distance\/Development\/Disaster challenges. That\u2019s why leaders in places like Bougainville find it <a href=\"http:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2017-01-31\/xenophon-leads-calls-for-abc-to-reinstate-shortwave-radio\/8225694\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u2018totally shocking\u2019<\/a> that the ABC turned off shortwave. Here\u2019s hoping the Senate maintains its sense of shock, and forces the ABC back to its Charter responsibilities and a Pacific broadcasting U-turn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The technical bastardry of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in degrading its shortwave broadcasts to the South Pacific has been starkly revealed. The bloody-mindedness helps explain the dumb decision to turn off Australia\u2019s shortwave service that &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":32467,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[880,99],"class_list":["post-32466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australia-and-its-region","tag-abc","tag-south-pacific"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The ABC gets it wrong on its South Pacific service | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/abc-gets-wrong-south-pacific-service\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The ABC gets it wrong on its South Pacific service | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The technical bastardry of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in degrading its shortwave broadcasts to the South Pacific has been starkly revealed. 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