THE future of Australia’s bloated national broadcaster has been struck a blow with news its UK cousin is to be downsized and turned into a pay-TV service. 

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced last week he would decriminalise non-payment of BBC licence fees by 2022 and completely scrap government-enforced funding by 2027. 

A user-pay subscription model appears to be the only viable option if the BBC is to survive – though considerable downsizing would still be required. 

PM Johnson has been quoted as saying the BBC is in need of “serious reform”.

ABC

While Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison is yet to publicly say so, there are many within his government who believe Australia’s billion dollar ABC is also in need of “serious reform”.

And they will be looking carefully at the UK.

The proposed UK reforms would see most of the BBC’s radio interests sold off, its online platforms significantly scaled back and a leaner TV broadcasting operation chasing paid subscribers.

NUMBERS

Australia should do the same.

Politicom has run the numbers and they stack up – so long as at least half ABC viewers remain loyal when fees kick in.

Once its radio stations and other miscellaneous assets are carved off, the cost to run the ABC’s existing TV business is about $560m a year. [For costing methodology refer to Macquarie Bank’s: “An Analysis of ABC’s Funding Relative to International Public Broadcasters and Domestic Peers”.]

With a current TV audience of 3.8m viewers per year, this could possibly halve to 1.9m viewers once subscriptions are introduced.

On these figures, the ABC could continue to operate its current TV offering by imposing a monthly subscription fee of $25 per viewer. In a two person household, this would equate to a $50 per month connection fee.

And if it dropped its ultra biased programming like Q&A, costs could be lowered and subscribers might actually increase.PC

MAIN PICTURE: Wishful thinking.