Time to resurrect an old idea? At long last, the Government has appointed two new members for the ABC Board. While we are still waiting for the big appointment - the successor to Ita Buttrose as ABC Chair - these new appointments are an important part of the ABC’s governance. And, according to Alumni Board Member Alan Sunderland, the early signs are all good…There was great news this week with the announcement, at long last, of two new Board Members for the ABC - Nicolette Maury and Louise McEl...

On Tuesday September 26th Chris Oliver-Taylor - since July 1st the ABC’s Chief Content Officer - was our guest at an exclusive webinar hosted by Gael Jennings.  Chris has a huge job.  He’s responsible for all ABC content that is not produced by the News Division. As Gael put it: “that’s all commissioning, in-house production, drama, entertainment, arts, science, children’s, factual, the national radio networks, Radio National, all the metro radio stations, ABC Listen, ABC iview, and all of this...

5-year funding periods are all very well, but what’s to stop a new government that gets elected half way through a funding term tearing up the agreement and starting again? It’s an issue the Albanese government, which has introduced 5-year funding for the ABC and SBS, is well aware of.A second issue that concerns the government is that the process for selecting ABC and SBS Board Directors on merit, introduced by the Rudd and Gillard governments, has proved easy to circumvent by ministers who wa...

The recent Stan Grant controversy threw up a host of important issues, among them the way in which the ABC supports its staff, diversity in the newsroom and racism. But it also raised the tricky issue of where the ABC draws the line between analysis and opinion, and whether ABC journalists are being given too much freedom to share their views. ABC Alumni Board member and former Editorial Director Alan Sunderland explores this important issue…When Does Analysis Become Opinion? “I have opinions o...