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PETER VAN ONSELEN: Inside the downfall of the ABC's flagship show By Peter van Onselen, Political Editor for Daily Mail Australia Published: 22:50 EDT, 9 October 2024 | Updated: 23:06 EDT, 9 October 2024 e-mail 1 View comments So after losing nearly 50 percent of the Radio National breakfast show audience that listened to Fran Kelly for many years, her replacement Patricia Karvelas is leaving after just three years in the chair. Enough damage has been done, it's time to find a new host. The search is ongoing apparently.
It's hard to really know whose decision it was for Karvelas to move on. The official line is that the new host wanted to move on from the role she long coveted. And new ABC Chair Kim Williams has made no secret of his desire to elevate the sagging performance of ABC radio programming.
At the very least, Williams clearly isn't distraught at losing Karvelas from the line up that will aim to lift ABC radio's performance in the coming months and years. The ABC's declining audience needn't worry, however, Karvelas will continue to host the (no longer) weekly television show QandA, even though its ratings have also plummeted from what they were back when Tony Jones led vibrant and interesting discussions. The ABC has cut its number of episodes each year from 40 to just 24.
It returns on October 21. I'm sure a handful of Australians have marked the date in their diaries in eager anticipation. Patricia Karvelas is leaving as ABC Radio National host after three years in the chair I used to be an avid listener to Kelly when she hosted RN breakfast.
I'm part of that 43 per cent collapse in the shows ratings. Kelly was an unashamed lefty when hosting, but she was an equal opportunity interviewer when grilling politicians. And her style was the perfect start to the day - easy to listen to, providing high quality analysis and guests.
More importantly, she led nuanced discussions that avoided preaching to listeners, telling them what to think. The tone of the program back then was informative and enjoyable to listen to. That all changed when Kelly left, so much of her audience moved on too, seemingly uninterested in being lectured to by her replacement.
While the ABC likes to claim that it provides analysis not opinion in its on air offerings examining politics, that's simply not the case with some of its next generation hosts. The lines blur, the lectures start, the absolutism about what's right and wrong gets rammed down people's throats - as though having an alternative opinion is morally unacceptable. So listeners choose to get their news elsewhere instead.
Where they don't feel like an inferior being for occasionally disagreeing with the certainty of opinions offered. In commercial radio, opinions are encouraged, and they can be tabloid in nature. But at the ABC, where opinions are left-wing, not mainstream, they sometimes grate.
Karvelas's style grates more than most, which is presumably why she couldn't retain those of us who never missed an episode of what Kelly previously served up each morning. New ABC Chair Kim Williams has made no secret of his desire to elevate the sagging performance of ABC radio programming. Above, with communications minister Michelle Rowland When Karvelas started in the role the then Radio National political editor Alison Carabine also moved on, which wouldn't have helped the new host retain the program's audience.
Like Kelly, Carabine was fair and balanced, whatever her personal views might have been. She'd been in the parliamentary gallery for decades and knew her stuff. It was a big loss to the program.
If the ABC is going to get Williams's vision of what the broadcaster should be right, management will need to step up. It needs to take the blame for putting the wrong people in the right jobs to make a success of ABC programming. News director Justin Stevens - who was appointed after Karvelas was installed in the role, but has watched her ratings decline - has been lacklustre.
And the outgoing managing director, David Anderson led from behind, letting the inmates run the asylum rather than showing the backbone an ABC boss needs. Otherwise the proverbial tail wags the dog at the public broadcaster. If the ABC wants to find a way to return itself to the lofty standards it previously set, a clean out of management is as important as a clean out of presenters who don't rate.
After all, it's management that made the decisions to appoint those hosts who have failed. They should be as accountable for poor performance as a football coach is. Share or comment on this article: PETER VAN ONSELEN: Inside the downfall of the ABC's flagship show e-mail Add comment.
