Yes, audiences have changed. But this is destroying a core tenet of news

This is all our fault. We stopped watching Q+A. We stopped watching The Project. We've stopped appointment television unless it's the footy.
We've changed. As a result, broadcasters, in an attempt to keep audiences, change what they're offering us.
We know The Project lost its way, but believe me, when it started out, it felt young and fresh, brimming with energy.
Did we start to disengage after it lost Charlie Pickering?
Did we lose our sense of humour? Or did they lose their understanding of what we needed to know and how much that's changed?
How much have we really changed?
I'm not the right person to answer this because I listen, read and watch news all day, every day. But I've got some insights into what's going on at the ABC this week and it makes me want to cry.
This week, the ABC announced it would end its panel show Q+A after 18 years.
Sure.
Despite the fact that ratings for the program, now hosted by Patricia Karvelas, had increased.
She and her team, including the remarkable executive producer Eliza Harvey, kept trying different things.
So is it about the money? Probably.
I think about 10 people will lose their jobs from that program alone, including some who are on the ABC's notorious casual contracts cycle.
We don't need to keep the same thing forever, but it's weird that both its panel shows have now gone.
Let us hope and pray we don't get served up even more Hard Quiz or the bizarrely unentertaining House of Games, which now leads us into the news. I can't think of a less suitable entrée.
Marks continues in his email: "Upcoming initiatives in news include investing in producing additional high-impact premium news documentary programs and embedding Your Say as a permanent initiative."
Much as I love Your Say, I'm not sure it's all that. You answer various online questions and then somehow that's turned into filler, not attached to real humans.
As you know, no need to be honest with a form - and it kind of plays with us, to be more conservative, to be more progressive, to see where it lands. Is it fun? Sure. Is it truly meaningful? Doubt that so much.
Feels like phony participation. Falls far short. I remember my various editors over various decades telling me that the best way of representing what real people felt was to include real people, real names, real lives.
Anyhow, I've asked various staff members at the ABC if they can decode Marks's email to all staff. Most have backed away politely.
They say they don't really have a clue what most of it means. What they do know is that 40 staff will be made redundant, and 10 short-term contracts will be terminated early.
Weirdly, in the more detailed change proposal, the ABC is backing away from digital and dumping innovation.
Do we know any other 21st century organisation doing that?
I'm shocked Marks thinks he can embed innovation in every unit. Real inventive thinking takes time, space and quiet. It is the exact opposite of what daily media production requires.
A couple of insiders have said to me that these changes show a desire by Marks to strut his stuff. What he's doing, they say, is clawing resources (money, people) into television, something he actually knows about.
"He's building a war chest for TV," says one source.
The internal email says: "The objective is to enhance our TV slate in volume and ambition, increase our capacity to commission more high-value journalism, enable more original podcasting and put targeted resources into our metropolitan audio teams." Yeah, translated, TV war chest.
The ABC already does brilliant, high-value journalism.
Back the people you already employ. Fund more episodes of Four Corners. Give more staff to news, especially radio news and current affairs.
The audience cannot possibly tolerate the barely changed iterations of news stories on AM, The World Today and PM.
These are three flagships (and I listen as if news was my religion) and they should be treated that way.
Now, going back to Marks's email to staff. See how TV comes first in that list. He's also decided to rename the ABC's Content division as ABC Screen, which will be led by Jennifer Collins.
This might be the one bit of good news in the entire shemozzle.
Here's an array of adjectives used by ABC employees to describe Collins: respected, no bullshit, pragmatic. And, doesn't interfere in tiny decisions.
READ MORE:
Apparently, she was overlooked when they appointed Chris Oliver-Taylor (he's the one who carried the can on the Antoinette Lattouf fiasco, but there were others, there were others). Bet ABC management very sorry about that now.
Collins has had a long career at the ABC and a short career in commercial screen (as we seem to be calling television now) and has a double degree in television and psychology.
She'll need that, not just in thinking about how audiences work, but in thinking about how her boss works. So many people have described Hugh Marks to me as a micromanager who needs more trust in the people who work for him.
Speaking of micromanagers. In April, the then-newish host of the ABC's Media Watch, Linton Besser and his team, exposed Kim Williams as an apparently activist chair with no business running the most important media institution in the country. Micromanaging madly. And badly. Trying to leverage his status to influence who appeared on the national broadcaster.
At the time, Marks said: "I am vigilant to ensure the proper delineation of responsibility between the board and management, and will act appropriately to ensure the best interests of the ABC, its people and audiences as we move forward."
So far, no evidence we are moving forward. Just more bad news. More redundancies.
No evidence that any of the most senior folks at the ABC or Ten have any idea what we, the listeners and watchers, really want. Maybe we don't know either. There's only so many episodes of Shrinking.
This is all our fault. We stopped watching Q+A. We stopped watching The Project. We've stopped appointment television unless it's the footy.
We've changed. As a result, broadcasters, in an attempt to keep audiences, change what they're offering us.
We know The Project lost its way, but believe me, when it started out, it felt young and fresh, brimming with energy.
Did we start to disengage after it lost Charlie Pickering?
Did we lose our sense of humour? Or did they lose their understanding of what we needed to know and how much that's changed?
How much have we really changed?
I'm not the right person to answer this because I listen, read and watch news all day, every day. But I've got some insights into what's going on at the ABC this week and it makes me want to cry.
This week, the ABC announced it would end its panel show Q+A after 18 years.
Sure.
Despite the fact that ratings for the program, now hosted by Patricia Karvelas, had increased.
She and her team, including the remarkable executive producer Eliza Harvey, kept trying different things.
So is it about the money? Probably.
I think about 10 people will lose their jobs from that program alone, including some who are on the ABC's notorious casual contracts cycle.
We don't need to keep the same thing forever, but it's weird that both its panel shows have now gone.
Let us hope and pray we don't get served up even more Hard Quiz or the bizarrely unentertaining House of Games, which now leads us into the news. I can't think of a less suitable entrée.
Marks continues in his email: "Upcoming initiatives in news include investing in producing additional high-impact premium news documentary programs and embedding Your Say as a permanent initiative."
Much as I love Your Say, I'm not sure it's all that. You answer various online questions and then somehow that's turned into filler, not attached to real humans.
As you know, no need to be honest with a form - and it kind of plays with us, to be more conservative, to be more progressive, to see where it lands. Is it fun? Sure. Is it truly meaningful? Doubt that so much.
Feels like phony participation. Falls far short. I remember my various editors over various decades telling me that the best way of representing what real people felt was to include real people, real names, real lives.
Anyhow, I've asked various staff members at the ABC if they can decode Marks's email to all staff. Most have backed away politely.
They say they don't really have a clue what most of it means. What they do know is that 40 staff will be made redundant, and 10 short-term contracts will be terminated early.
Weirdly, in the more detailed change proposal, the ABC is backing away from digital and dumping innovation.
Do we know any other 21st century organisation doing that?
I'm shocked Marks thinks he can embed innovation in every unit. Real inventive thinking takes time, space and quiet. It is the exact opposite of what daily media production requires.
A couple of insiders have said to me that these changes show a desire by Marks to strut his stuff. What he's doing, they say, is clawing resources (money, people) into television, something he actually knows about.
"He's building a war chest for TV," says one source.
The internal email says: "The objective is to enhance our TV slate in volume and ambition, increase our capacity to commission more high-value journalism, enable more original podcasting and put targeted resources into our metropolitan audio teams." Yeah, translated, TV war chest.
The ABC already does brilliant, high-value journalism.
Back the people you already employ. Fund more episodes of Four Corners. Give more staff to news, especially radio news and current affairs.
The audience cannot possibly tolerate the barely changed iterations of news stories on AM, The World Today and PM.
These are three flagships (and I listen as if news was my religion) and they should be treated that way.
Now, going back to Marks's email to staff. See how TV comes first in that list. He's also decided to rename the ABC's Content division as ABC Screen, which will be led by Jennifer Collins.
This might be the one bit of good news in the entire shemozzle.
Here's an array of adjectives used by ABC employees to describe Collins: respected, no bullshit, pragmatic. And, doesn't interfere in tiny decisions.
READ MORE:
Apparently, she was overlooked when they appointed Chris Oliver-Taylor (he's the one who carried the can on the Antoinette Lattouf fiasco, but there were others, there were others). Bet ABC management very sorry about that now.
Collins has had a long career at the ABC and a short career in commercial screen (as we seem to be calling television now) and has a double degree in television and psychology.
She'll need that, not just in thinking about how audiences work, but in thinking about how her boss works. So many people have described Hugh Marks to me as a micromanager who needs more trust in the people who work for him.
Speaking of micromanagers. In April, the then-newish host of the ABC's Media Watch, Linton Besser and his team, exposed Kim Williams as an apparently activist chair with no business running the most important media institution in the country. Micromanaging madly. And badly. Trying to leverage his status to influence who appeared on the national broadcaster.
At the time, Marks said: "I am vigilant to ensure the proper delineation of responsibility between the board and management, and will act appropriately to ensure the best interests of the ABC, its people and audiences as we move forward."
So far, no evidence we are moving forward. Just more bad news. More redundancies.
No evidence that any of the most senior folks at the ABC or Ten have any idea what we, the listeners and watchers, really want. Maybe we don't know either. There's only so many episodes of Shrinking.
This is all our fault. We stopped watching Q+A. We stopped watching The Project. We've stopped appointment television unless it's the footy.
We've changed. As a result, broadcasters, in an attempt to keep audiences, change what they're offering us.
We know The Project lost its way, but believe me, when it started out, it felt young and fresh, brimming with energy.
Did we start to disengage after it lost Charlie Pickering?
Did we lose our sense of humour? Or did they lose their understanding of what we needed to know and how much that's changed?
How much have we really changed?
I'm not the right person to answer this because I listen, read and watch news all day, every day. But I've got some insights into what's going on at the ABC this week and it makes me want to cry.
This week, the ABC announced it would end its panel show Q+A after 18 years.
Sure.
Despite the fact that ratings for the program, now hosted by Patricia Karvelas, had increased.
She and her team, including the remarkable executive producer Eliza Harvey, kept trying different things.
So is it about the money? Probably.
I think about 10 people will lose their jobs from that program alone, including some who are on the ABC's notorious casual contracts cycle.
We don't need to keep the same thing forever, but it's weird that both its panel shows have now gone.
Let us hope and pray we don't get served up even more Hard Quiz or the bizarrely unentertaining House of Games, which now leads us into the news. I can't think of a less suitable entrée.
Marks continues in his email: "Upcoming initiatives in news include investing in producing additional high-impact premium news documentary programs and embedding Your Say as a permanent initiative."
Much as I love Your Say, I'm not sure it's all that. You answer various online questions and then somehow that's turned into filler, not attached to real humans.
As you know, no need to be honest with a form - and it kind of plays with us, to be more conservative, to be more progressive, to see where it lands. Is it fun? Sure. Is it truly meaningful? Doubt that so much.
Feels like phony participation. Falls far short. I remember my various editors over various decades telling me that the best way of representing what real people felt was to include real people, real names, real lives.
Anyhow, I've asked various staff members at the ABC if they can decode Marks's email to all staff. Most have backed away politely.
They say they don't really have a clue what most of it means. What they do know is that 40 staff will be made redundant, and 10 short-term contracts will be terminated early.
Weirdly, in the more detailed change proposal, the ABC is backing away from digital and dumping innovation.
Do we know any other 21st century organisation doing that?
I'm shocked Marks thinks he can embed innovation in every unit. Real inventive thinking takes time, space and quiet. It is the exact opposite of what daily media production requires.
A couple of insiders have said to me that these changes show a desire by Marks to strut his stuff. What he's doing, they say, is clawing resources (money, people) into television, something he actually knows about.
"He's building a war chest for TV," says one source.
The internal email says: "The objective is to enhance our TV slate in volume and ambition, increase our capacity to commission more high-value journalism, enable more original podcasting and put targeted resources into our metropolitan audio teams." Yeah, translated, TV war chest.
The ABC already does brilliant, high-value journalism.
Back the people you already employ. Fund more episodes of Four Corners. Give more staff to news, especially radio news and current affairs.
The audience cannot possibly tolerate the barely changed iterations of news stories on AM, The World Today and PM.
These are three flagships (and I listen as if news was my religion) and they should be treated that way.
Now, going back to Marks's email to staff. See how TV comes first in that list. He's also decided to rename the ABC's Content division as ABC Screen, which will be led by Jennifer Collins.
This might be the one bit of good news in the entire shemozzle.
Here's an array of adjectives used by ABC employees to describe Collins: respected, no bullshit, pragmatic. And, doesn't interfere in tiny decisions.
READ MORE:
Apparently, she was overlooked when they appointed Chris Oliver-Taylor (he's the one who carried the can on the Antoinette Lattouf fiasco, but there were others, there were others). Bet ABC management very sorry about that now.
Collins has had a long career at the ABC and a short career in commercial screen (as we seem to be calling television now) and has a double degree in television and psychology.
She'll need that, not just in thinking about how audiences work, but in thinking about how her boss works. So many people have described Hugh Marks to me as a micromanager who needs more trust in the people who work for him.
Speaking of micromanagers. In April, the then-newish host of the ABC's Media Watch, Linton Besser and his team, exposed Kim Williams as an apparently activist chair with no business running the most important media institution in the country. Micromanaging madly. And badly. Trying to leverage his status to influence who appeared on the national broadcaster.
At the time, Marks said: "I am vigilant to ensure the proper delineation of responsibility between the board and management, and will act appropriately to ensure the best interests of the ABC, its people and audiences as we move forward."
So far, no evidence we are moving forward. Just more bad news. More redundancies.
No evidence that any of the most senior folks at the ABC or Ten have any idea what we, the listeners and watchers, really want. Maybe we don't know either. There's only so many episodes of Shrinking.
This is all our fault. We stopped watching Q+A. We stopped watching The Project. We've stopped appointment television unless it's the footy.
We've changed. As a result, broadcasters, in an attempt to keep audiences, change what they're offering us.
We know The Project lost its way, but believe me, when it started out, it felt young and fresh, brimming with energy.
Did we start to disengage after it lost Charlie Pickering?
Did we lose our sense of humour? Or did they lose their understanding of what we needed to know and how much that's changed?
How much have we really changed?
I'm not the right person to answer this because I listen, read and watch news all day, every day. But I've got some insights into what's going on at the ABC this week and it makes me want to cry.
This week, the ABC announced it would end its panel show Q+A after 18 years.
Sure.
Despite the fact that ratings for the program, now hosted by Patricia Karvelas, had increased.
She and her team, including the remarkable executive producer Eliza Harvey, kept trying different things.
So is it about the money? Probably.
I think about 10 people will lose their jobs from that program alone, including some who are on the ABC's notorious casual contracts cycle.
We don't need to keep the same thing forever, but it's weird that both its panel shows have now gone.
Let us hope and pray we don't get served up even more Hard Quiz or the bizarrely unentertaining House of Games, which now leads us into the news. I can't think of a less suitable entrée.
Marks continues in his email: "Upcoming initiatives in news include investing in producing additional high-impact premium news documentary programs and embedding Your Say as a permanent initiative."
Much as I love Your Say, I'm not sure it's all that. You answer various online questions and then somehow that's turned into filler, not attached to real humans.
As you know, no need to be honest with a form - and it kind of plays with us, to be more conservative, to be more progressive, to see where it lands. Is it fun? Sure. Is it truly meaningful? Doubt that so much.
Feels like phony participation. Falls far short. I remember my various editors over various decades telling me that the best way of representing what real people felt was to include real people, real names, real lives.
Anyhow, I've asked various staff members at the ABC if they can decode Marks's email to all staff. Most have backed away politely.
They say they don't really have a clue what most of it means. What they do know is that 40 staff will be made redundant, and 10 short-term contracts will be terminated early.
Weirdly, in the more detailed change proposal, the ABC is backing away from digital and dumping innovation.
Do we know any other 21st century organisation doing that?
I'm shocked Marks thinks he can embed innovation in every unit. Real inventive thinking takes time, space and quiet. It is the exact opposite of what daily media production requires.
A couple of insiders have said to me that these changes show a desire by Marks to strut his stuff. What he's doing, they say, is clawing resources (money, people) into television, something he actually knows about.
"He's building a war chest for TV," says one source.
The internal email says: "The objective is to enhance our TV slate in volume and ambition, increase our capacity to commission more high-value journalism, enable more original podcasting and put targeted resources into our metropolitan audio teams." Yeah, translated, TV war chest.
The ABC already does brilliant, high-value journalism.
Back the people you already employ. Fund more episodes of Four Corners. Give more staff to news, especially radio news and current affairs.
The audience cannot possibly tolerate the barely changed iterations of news stories on AM, The World Today and PM.
These are three flagships (and I listen as if news was my religion) and they should be treated that way.
Now, going back to Marks's email to staff. See how TV comes first in that list. He's also decided to rename the ABC's Content division as ABC Screen, which will be led by Jennifer Collins.
This might be the one bit of good news in the entire shemozzle.
Here's an array of adjectives used by ABC employees to describe Collins: respected, no bullshit, pragmatic. And, doesn't interfere in tiny decisions.
READ MORE:
Apparently, she was overlooked when they appointed Chris Oliver-Taylor (he's the one who carried the can on the Antoinette Lattouf fiasco, but there were others, there were others). Bet ABC management very sorry about that now.
Collins has had a long career at the ABC and a short career in commercial screen (as we seem to be calling television now) and has a double degree in television and psychology.
She'll need that, not just in thinking about how audiences work, but in thinking about how her boss works. So many people have described Hugh Marks to me as a micromanager who needs more trust in the people who work for him.
Speaking of micromanagers. In April, the then-newish host of the ABC's Media Watch, Linton Besser and his team, exposed Kim Williams as an apparently activist chair with no business running the most important media institution in the country. Micromanaging madly. And badly. Trying to leverage his status to influence who appeared on the national broadcaster.
At the time, Marks said: "I am vigilant to ensure the proper delineation of responsibility between the board and management, and will act appropriately to ensure the best interests of the ABC, its people and audiences as we move forward."
So far, no evidence we are moving forward. Just more bad news. More redundancies.
No evidence that any of the most senior folks at the ABC or Ten have any idea what we, the listeners and watchers, really want. Maybe we don't know either. There's only so many episodes of Shrinking.

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