Strangling Aunty: perilous times for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Australian media has been dominated by commercial interests but backgrounding them all has been Australia’s biggest independent, entirely federal government-funded broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). The ABC did not have easy beginnings in 1932 shackled by conditions and controls insisted upon by commercial media which meddled in its start-up to limit its development. This book argues that the ABC’s survival has taken place amid ongoing and growing threats of funding cuts, privatisation and/or subscription fees, a virulent staff culture, failure by management and politicians, digital disorientation and attacks from commercial media. A reason for these threats is that the ABC is now competing in a monetised space, akin to a field of war. The ABC’s success and endurance were based on its capacity to attract an educated, privileged and élite audience and exert power through what Pierre Bourdieu [1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice (R. Nice, Trans.). Cambridge University Press.] theorised as cultural capital accruing reputational capital from its own, unique field. But the ABC has drifted from its exclusive field into the capricious and reshaping digital media landscape. It now imitates commercial operators, and times are tough for ‘Aunty’. The ABC’s cultural capital and reputational capital were only made possible from its initial role to legitimate and articulate an Australian culture. But this is now dispersed and forgotten in the online media jungle, where reputable commercial outfits also struggle. This chapter outlines the methodology of the book merging Institutional Logics theory and Bourdieu’s theories of cultural capital, habitus, field and practice to offer an understanding of the ABC’s challenges, both internal and external, that are strangling Aunty’s voice.