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PAY NETWORKS COMPARED
Only 25% of Australian homes have pay TV. Yet almost as many people watch pay TV as watch ABC and SBS combined.
ABC and SBS are also pay TV networks, although with them you have no choice but to pay, whether you wish to subscribe or not.
As an America, if I had to pay for ABC, CBS, & NBC before being able to get all the other channels, I would ditch them all. Most night the only shows that don’t talk down to you are on Discover, ESPN, or The History Channel. My kids mostly watch DVD’s and I could take my sports watch to the local pub, which I do anyway.
25% of Australians watch the ABC ans SBS?? That is the surprising statistic in all of this. I figured it was nothing more then a visual outlet for dole bludgers and derelicts. I calculate that about 5% of the population is about right. When a blank screen is more popular then the ABC or SBS that says it all.
Posted by swassociates on 2005 06 06 at 05:08 PM • permalinkMaybe they should change their callsign NDKLY-TV
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 06 06 at 07:34 PM • permalinkyeah we know ABC & SBS are full of commie deadshits, but i love the crime shows & the brit comedy & the films & the frock dramas & the pommy & other accents instead of nasal whiny yankees speaking at a billion words a second
sure i could get this stuff on cable or dvd if i had the time to go looking, but shopping, including entertainment, is another chore i don’t need
and watching the patronising lefty gits helps maintain the rage - also Lateline exposes the Labor frontbench beautifully - i’m sure Tony Jones means to help them, but he’s so cackhanded it’s a hoot
Byron - exactly right. We all pay for commercial TV, ABC and SBS, even if we don’t watch it. At least with Pay TV, if you choose not to watch, you don’t pay.
I’d much rather pay my 8c a day to watch (some of ) the ABC’s programs than have that 8c and more added to the price of petrol, insurance and the like just to support crap like “Big Brother”.
Byron- you don’t HAVE to buy products advertised on FTA TV- in fact I go out of my way to not put money into companies whose advertising shits me; for example, I will never buy a product of GMH (not that I would’ve before they started using that brain-damaged fucktard as their spokes-bogan), and the crazy frog ringtone company won’t see any of my dollars. It’s called freedom of choice- if I withold the part of my tax bill that goes towards public broadcasting, I get prosecuted. Prety Slatinist in my book.
The idea that advertising adds to the cost of goods is an interesting one that is regularly trotted out by supporters of taxpayer funded media.
I’d like to see some evidence of this. I’m not an expert in marketing but I would have thought, perhaps niaively, that advertising, by increasing market shares, improves ecomomies of scale and keeps prices down. Doubtless I’m wrong, but I’d be keen to see Byron prove his claim with some hard marketing data.
Posted by Consuela Potez on 2005 06 06 at 09:08 PM • permalinkMore people watch Big Brother than the news or the state of origin. Does that mean that current affairs and footy are crap and big brother is awesome?
Posted by SheikYerbouti on 2005 06 06 at 09:16 PM • permalinkKK — Can’t you watch any decent homegrown productions of the wacky adventures of the Rum Corps or something instead?
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 06 06 at 09:20 PM • permalinkBecause the people who run ABC and SBS are fossilized, insular lefties who select their own kind to continue their unholy breed… and the intellectual inbreeding is starting to show…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 06 06 at 10:56 PM • permalinkByron, no one doubts that Commercial television receives huge revenues from advertising. The question,however, is the extent to which the cost of this advertising is passed on to the consumer verses the extent to which, by increasing market size, advertising enables producers to keep prices down and therefore remain competitive. If the latter is true, then it becomes rather more difficult to argue that consumers are subsidizing commercial television.
As I indicated earlier, I don’t know the answer to this question, yet the assertion that the consumer subsidises commercial televsion through advertising is repeated an nauseum as a piece of received wisdom by supporters of taxpayer funded media.
Incidentally, my problem with the ABC in particular is its relentlessly earnest lower middle brow product and its unquestioning acceptance of the received wisdom of the bougeoise progressive
BTW, ever noticed that the producers/directors/actors in serious ABC drama have no idea how ordinary Australians talk and behave???
Posted by Consuela Potez on 2005 06 06 at 11:05 PM • permalinkBTW- Clive Hale karked it from the big C yesterday- one of the ABC’s old school, he could actually speak english without error or inflection, and never allowed his own agenda to creep into his reporting, unlike the pathetic, illiterate hacks that infest the corporation these days (Red Kezza, anyone?). We could probably tolerate the ABC if it was still staffed by such professionals rather than the chattering dingbats that foul the airwave with their lame, biased and poorly written gibberish.
Speaking of dear ol’ aunty, media watch last night was a laugh a minute.
The first piece was a bitch abou the Corby Case (tm)coverage, but not what you expect. No, it was that Paul Kelly, Andrew Bolt and Piers Ackerman, who were criticial of the coverage, did not NAME NAMES. Lizzy’s angle was that this was only becuase the journo’s they were critisising were fellow News Corp journos (so was it only the evil murdoch corp that wound up the mob, lizzie, or perhaps they were merely being polite?).Next up, there was the fact that Radio Australia (that beams into Asia) would be up for tender next year. It started with coverage of CEO Balding answering questions before a Senate estimates committee. Lizzy’s angle: That the ‘orrible government was opening it up for tender, so that ‘orrible Murdoch (or even Packer!) could possibly get their filthy hands on it. When this segment started, I naively though the MW angle would be the obvious set of dorothy dixers that had been supplied to Senator Conroy by CEO Balding, and how this was a travesty of the Senate process, and that Balding, a Government employee, was colluding with an opposition Senator. But on second thoughts, Conroy is not really the opposition for the ABC, is he?
I think you’re ignoring the value of advertising to consumers. Consumers must receive some useful information from advertising or else companies would’nt purchase it.
Posted by drscroogemcduck on 2005 06 06 at 11:56 PM • permalinkConsuela’s argument is much more compelling. Advertisers invest in commercials on TV because it makes them more money. A whole helluva lot of money, given how much they are willing to sink into the ads themselves.
To think that the cost of advertising is so great that it must be offset in the price of the advertised product is pretty silly. Effective advertising pays for itself.
I agree that some advertising serves a useful purpose, but surely not all of it! The ABC and SBS also provide some good services - you shouldnt judge them solely on the basis of the whackjobs in current affairs. In many parts of regional Australia the local ABC radio is the only source of local information, because the commercial TV and radio are just taking network feeds from the capital cities.
On the subject of the ABC, did anyone catch The Einstein Factor on Sunday? Once again a contestant scored a direct hit on a member of the Brains Trust, this time none other than Dr Barry Jones.
The contestant’s subject was Vexillology (the study of flags) and the bonus question was: True or false: One of the social classes originally represented by four smaller stars on the Chinese flag was intellectuals.
The contestant can answer himself for 100 points or pass it to the Brains Trust for 200 and he opted to let them have a go. They answered true after Jones waffled on for a while but the correct answer was false.
Asked by the host if he knew the statement was false, the contestant said yes but he handed it to the Brains Trust because he figured if anyone would know the correct answer it would be a Socialist.
The look on Barry’s face was priceless.
drscroogemcduck — Don’t forget the other value of advertising to consumers… it’s generally better than the programs…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 06 07 at 01:11 AM • permalinkI hate to play the boring economist again, but the assumption that firms maximize profits tends to hold up pretty well. Hence, the conclusion is that advertising must be helping firms achieve exactly that. If they could improve profits by killing off their marketing divisions, they’d be doing that. They’re not, obviously.
The question of whether there’s too much advertising doesn’t really matter. It’s a market equilibrium. There is such a thing as negative benefits to excessive advertising after all (unless one subscribes to the leftist notion that we’re all gullible children who lap up whatever the eeeevil corporations throw at us).
Byron, you may think that there’s too much advertising, but the market has decided differently. Unless you’re able to show that there’s a serious case of market failure that requires government intervention to fix, I’m afraid you’ll just have to accept the status quo. If disgust with the amount of advertising around ever becomes a majority position (or at least a sizable minority one) and starts to affect firms’ bottom lines, they’ll be forced to cut it down. That’s the market for ya, too.
richard mcenroe - well there was that great d-generation redubbed spoof of rush called olden days (bad hat, bad hat, naughty sleeve etc), & i went out & bought the vid, so yes
good face - yeah i saw that einstein factor thing
abc - 8 cents a day
lefty panellists - many, many wasted taxpayer dollars over many decades
barry jones confirmed as clueless windbag - pricelessOz media liftout each week says about 18% combined I think pay inclusive.
Fran had a tiger by the tail at breakfast.Lord Altin, an independent cross bench peer discussing Sudan.
She gushed in “world’s worst humanitarian tragedy”. Him “ no its genocide, things haven’t got any better etc”.
Her"LET’S STOP JUST THERE for a moment. Is it about....
Him"Moslem fighting moslem.Janjaweed wants to impose Sharia law.”
Her,stops him “OK - WELL”
Him"Govt will not provide(offenders) to U.N. court.30 day deadline has not been implemented,no fly zone not put in place,more international soldiers needed.100 Canadian troops knocked back “we will not tolerate their prescence on our soil”.etc.
Shattered Fran winds up.Consuela’s argument is correct (IMO). Investment is made in advertising to increase market share, not to increase the profit margin. Increased profits are usually derived from increased sales, profits can then be used to create further market share by price undercutting.
Some invest in marketing and still go broke, or more likely get taken over.
Its a furphy that advertising will make you spend more or buy a product that you did not want.
"The commercial networks are paid for by advertising, the cost of which is built into the price of all the goods and services advertised. So each time you go to the supermarket etc you are paying for “free” tv.”
Sheesh - this old furphy repeated. Back to Economics 101, Marketing 101, and Finance 101, Byron.
What if products weren’t advertised? How much would they cost then? Answer: a heck of a lot more than they do with advertising.
Suggestion: Bone up on what ‘cost-volume-profit’ relationship means. Hint: a firm whose marketing costs are not covered by profit greater than those costs is headed out the door. You seem to be suggesting that if firms stopped advertising they would still thrive and could reduce the price of product.
Posted by walterplinge on 2005 06 07 at 03:42 AM • permalinkGood Face says :
The look on Barry’s face was priceless.
You are so right - spot on!
However, I have a small general kind of gripe with this site. Much of the programming on the ABC and SBS is really excellent, frequently better than that available on commercial. Not always, of course, but so too the commercial options frequently offer mindless crap plus adverts. And there is bias absolutely everywhere - it’s human nature, whether you’re Packer, Murdoch, Stokes, a faceless bureaucrat or a blogger. I enjoy much of what you write, Tim, and am a long-time reader of and subscriber to The Bulletin. But I like to read and watch many things for education and balance. Some of your supporters sound as irrationally biased as those of Margot, who I don’t admire for a moment, but let’s not have the pot calling....etc
You bet
#5
I thought I was the only one who did that. I have a whole list of products and companies I’m never going to deal with thanks to their awful ads.
#26
I REALLY need to start watching that show.
#34
I thought Inspector Rex was Austrian?
#36
What shows? SBS has a lot of interesting stuff sure, but the ABC? Between the dreadful Australian programs and depressing/insipid (sometimes both) UK dramas, there’s little left to enjoy.
Wired in the Blood was the last thing I watched on there (awesome show), before that was the odd music doco and the previous series of Wired in the Blood.
As for the original bit, I think it’s hilarous that someone like the How To Girl with the incredibly fake breasts can beat the ABC.
Still, the ABC and SBS can stand proud, they can out wank even the giant wankers on the Lifestyle channels.
Posted by Aging Gamer on 2005 06 07 at 05:42 AM • permalinkAging gamer says:
#36
What shows?
Music often, movies often, Enough Rope, Einstein Factor, which is enlightening and light, Compass - intelligent always even though I’m not a very religious soul, lots of docos but as much as anything else, I have memories of great comedy - The Good Life, Minder, Yes Minister, Yes Prime Minister, As Time Goes By, League of Gentlemen, The Young Ones, Porridge, Open All Hours and tons more going back to the sixties. And how about the Prime Suspect and Cracker series? - I haven’t seen better drama on the box.
Just to mention a few.
You bet
Hey, you bet—quit signing your comments. Do you think we’d suppose someone else put them there?
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2005 06 07 at 06:30 AM • permalinkI thought Inspector Rex was Austrian?
Show’s German, though the first guy who played the leading role (besides the dog, I mean) was Austrian.
However, I have a small general kind of gripe with this site. Much of the programming on the ABC and SBS is really excellent, frequently better than that available on commercial.
Well, let’s turn this argument around. Suppose there’s some (currently advertising-financed) TV channel that has a decent-sized audience, but whose schedule consists entirely of stuff that you don’t care for. Now imagine the owner of that channel starts lobbying the government for the introduction of a mandatory monthly fee going toward that one channel only. Would you be in favour of that? Why/Why not?
If in favour: Would your opinion change if every channel did that?
I have memories of great comedy as well, but they’re just that, memories (you missed The Goodies and The Games as well). Last thing I found humorous on the ABC was Kath & Kim, before that was Spaced and that was years ago.
While Enough Rope sounds interesting, isn’t Compass more ABC journalism?
Posted by Aging Gamer on 2005 06 07 at 07:01 AM • permalink#38- good grammar and phonetics went out the door at the ABC when the pinkos moved in. Even the 7 o’clock news makes me wince, not only from the biased content but the amateurish delivery. Anyone who has access to a local Channel 31 community station can find a news service as well scripted and delivered as the ABC by students- the good ones go on to make a decent screw at the commercials, the dud ideologically-driven ones go on to the public broadcasters and get similar money, They also get to maintain their smug and sanctimonious sense of self-rightousness, and their pathetic standard of journalistic professionalism, blatant bias and hopeless skills in the English language.
Public broadcasting has become a hideous Whitlam-obsessed virus, that replicates its own agenda at the expense of the majority of Australians; I think it’s incurable.
Sell the assets, get rid of broadcast licences, and let the market decide.#46- Aging Gamer- Kath and Kim sums up the ABC to me. Smug self-appointed elitists poking fun at bogans trying to better themselves. The ABC is supposed to be for all Australians- there’s a fucking lot more yobbos than there are smart-arse inner-urban wankers who’ve never driven a Commodore. In that case, there should be an ABC comedy about tossers who argue for ten minutes about what coffee they’re going to have, and who go on trekking tours of Patagonia to get close to the natives and come home with explosive dysentry and a bofly infestation in their testicles. Chances of the ABC poking fun at their remaining audience? You tell me.
That’s Wire in the Blood and it mainly grabs an audience fascinated by the sadistic and kinky plot lines.
Kath and Kim was never funny, it was ameteurish ,pathetically embarassing and cringeworthy.
The ABC is a little Magic Circle Club,sufficient unto itself.Happy to get up to its own devices and be left undisturbed,uncriticized,overfunded and above all superior to the masses who fund it.
What they hate and fear the most is the individual consumer finding out that others share his/her disgust and contempt but also disappointment with the public media.Habib, the pre-mentioned Games.
Crash, you completely missed the point of both shows. But you’re right it’s Wire, too much time on Lain forums…
Posted by Aging Gamer on 2005 06 07 at 09:49 AM • permalinkThose who kid themselves that they’re challenging orthodoxy (and consider themselves quite funny to boot) need to take a read of some of Melbourne comedian Ian McFadyen’s articles.
This one’s very relevant (check the date), prescient even:
McFadyen, amongst many other things, produced possibly Australia’s best TV comedy “Let the Blood Run Free”. Remember Nurse Good and Dr Lovechild?
Ah the ABC/SBS dilemna!
Those of us with half a brain know that in drama, comedy and culture the publicly owned broadcasters leave the commercials behind, as the latter have to appeal to the tastes of the oiks. However, in news and current affairs the ABC and SBS are pretty woeful. The answer is simple. Firstly, dump the news and current affairs people in the cities leaving the local news service for the bush. Secondly, privatise the remainder of the ABC.
There would a large niche market for any entertainment organisation that marketed itself as being for the intellectually superior. Not every commercial enterprise has to be a billion dollar concern. In fact some businesses that service the eleite in our society are quite small, yet they meet the needs of those who require their goods or services. For example, all the best tailors in Sydney are tiny businesses in comparison to the clothing chains. Yet people still buy fine suits.
The SBS currently gets a lot of its revenue from advertisng. We should, over the years force it to iobtain its whople budget from that source and any other non-government source it can find.
The ABC does get some things right.
Last Sunday, on the Radio National program, Big Ideas, the speaker was Singaporean diplomat Kishore Mahbubani.
Currently, you can listen to the program on the web, (http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bigidea/)
Later there should be a written transcript.The whole thing is worth a listen.
At about the 47th minute, in response to a twit question about the UN, he makes some excellent points about “blood for oil” in relation to the US in Iraq.
#43, Since Inspector Rex is set in Vienna, uses Austrian actors, and is produced by ORF Austrian Broadcasting Corporation, I think it is reasonable to call it Austrian, rather than German.
Incidentally, there are plenty of annoying and repetitive commercials on Foxtel.
Posted by pog-ma-thon on 2005 06 07 at 10:28 PM • permalinkI could forgive the mildy-irritating left-wing bias of the ABC if it provided leadership in bold exciting experimental broadcasting. Instead of which both ABC radio and TV are characterised by intellectual mediocrity and timidity. It doesn’t require big budgets to be experimental and show initiative (even though the ABC wastes massive amounts of taxpayers’ funds each year): look at the interesting programming of some of the small community-based radio stations which survive on the smell of an oilrag.
The ABC makes no attempt to appeal to other than mainstream tastes (unless its the PC tree-hugging, gay whale loving ones): look at the dominance of sport; or try to find more than a a token gesture of jazz each day on the “fine music” stations.
Bland boring grey public broadcasting: that’s your ABC.
#43, Since Inspector Rex is set in Vienna, uses Austrian actors, and is produced by ORF Austrian Broadcasting Corporation, I think it is reasonable to call it Austrian, rather than German.
That really depends. :) The show is (and has been since its beginning, IIRC) produced on joint order of both the ORF channel and Sat.1 in Germany, and I think it’s reasonable to say that the primary market is Germany and that’s where most of the funding comes from. Certainly, if ORF ever dropped the show from its schedule, it would likely continue to be produced just for Sat.1 and the German market, but probably not the other way around.
Admittedly, the initial idea for the show very likely originated in Austria.
#9 Habib
I will never buy a product of GMH (not that I would’ve before they started using that brain-damaged fucktard as their spokes-bogan)
The first advert using this whiney-voiced nong was for a special, one month only sale. I looked forward to the end of the promotion, when, bugger me, there were THREE of him in a new ad. Arrrrrgh!
I stay right away from products which use annoying/insulting/stupid advertising (or brain-damaged fucktards, as you so eloquently put it).
I was looking through the MediaWatch website and in their guestbook a certain “Jenna Hepburn” said:
“I’ve been listening to ABC774 this morning with Liz Jackson. I am at uni studying to be a journo at the moment and I truly believe that if Andrew Bolt is criticising you, you MUST be on the right track. Keepp (sic) the great work (sic), essential viewing on our Journlism (sic) curriculum.”
I think (and I admit I’m not certain) she is the same Jenna Hepburn who was studying Womens’ Studies at Deakin and who would love to interview Heather Osland (Ostend dug a grave with her son David, Osland mixed sedatives into her husband’s dinner, David struck the blows that killed the husband and David buried the husband’s body in the grave and thereafter David and Osland acted as though the husband had simply disappeared).
Now Jenna Hepburn wants to be a journo ... she should fit in nicely at the ABC.
#61 "Its a German Shepherd isn’t it?"
Yeah, and the shaggy dog in Beethoven’s 2nd was a St Bernard, so that must have been a Swiss film.
#62
Rex sounds more Weana than Bärndütsch to me.Posted by pog-ma-thon on 2005 06 08 at 02:23 AM • permalink#56- please nominate a comedy, drama or cultural item on either the ABC or SBS that hasn’t been dull, poorly written and so politically correct and ideology-driven it could have been swiped from a ethnic/gender studies textbook. (With the exception of Pizza of course). The last decent drama I’ve saw on the ABC was Blue Murder, and both series Janus and Phoenix. As for cultural items, they are so insular and hidebound to the prevailing paradigm that any old shit will be admired, as long as the right critic gives it the nod. The ABC is a drop-in centre for the terminally naff.
I like South Park.
But then again, I’m just a drooling slack jawed yokel.
nwad told me.Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2005 06 08 at 04:05 AM • permalinkpog-ma-thon (#58) I don’t think the ABC got it right on last sunday’s Big Idea. I don’t think the outcome was what they intended.
This program was a recording of a Alfred Deakin lecture.
If you listen from about minute 47, you hear some obviously young girlie girl talk about the puppet regimes installed by the evil amerikkka. The next questions were just as silly.
The speaker, Kishore Mahbubani, was obviously taken aback by this line of questionning, and said that he was surprised at the questions, as he thought he would be accused of being too hard on america, only to find that he stands accused of being too soft on america. He then went on to say that while he recognises that the USA can do terrible things, of all the possible countries that could possess the power possed by the yanks, only america could wield that power with such benelevance (this is paraphrased).
Robin Williams wound the program up with a little embarrassed comment about the differences of opinion between Mahbubani and the audience. LOL33.Of course advertising influences us, why do Domino’s advertise around dinner time and those annoying ring tone ads occur during the Simpson and Big Brother , ti’s their target market.
Yes its not perverse brain washing but sublimely it influences us, i.e. can’t be stuffed cooking then ring Dominos.
26.Who cares about embarrassing Barry Jones, surely his educational model in 2001 did this, get over your own political bias, he’s a has been.
C’mon, the ABC budget pales in comparison with other crap this Government has wasted money on.
PS . Yes this is my first post to timblair.net, but how about a complete contempt for all politicians. John Howard is not the saviour of the right, he’s simply the leader of another big taxing, big spending Government. O how I would love for “Objectivism” to rule, however, Australia is another socialist country, the question is whether Howard’s socialism is better than Labor’s but that’s another post.
PPS . As for the ABC/SBS how can you go past Dead Ringer, Blue Murder, Sea Change, Little Britain, Glass House, Spicks and Specks, South Park and anything with John Safran – satire rules.
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On ABC and SBS I was Oz and Pizza and sometimes Rage.
Where can I ask for my money back?