It’s ironic that no sooner has Labor come to power and promised to restore the ABC funding so ruthlessly stripped away by Scummo’s mob, than the broadcaster stages its own Night of the Long Knives. It may have been a surprise the ABC decided it didn’t need a political editor any more, and could therefore dispense with Andrew Probyn, but the drastic cuts to arts coverage were more predictable. Whenever there is money to be saved, the Arts are the first for the chop.
By getting rid of two senior arts editors, Auntie is relegating the Arts to an even lower rung on the ladder than they currently occupy – and that’s pretty low. It’s less than two years since Edwina Throsby was appointed Managing Editor of Arts, and now they’ve axed the position. Received wisdom is that with a large institution everyone needs at least three years to make an impression or not.
I’m opposed to the cuts, as I’m opposed to everything that treats the Arts as surplus to requirements. If I can’t feel a total sense of tragedy it’s because ABC arts coverage has been so dismal for so long it may be no great loss.
For years, ABC arts has been embracing popular culture to the detriment of critical arts coverage. When they dumped Michaela Boland as a dedicated arts reporter, they effectively abandoned any investigative journalism in the field. As a result, there has been very little coverage of the APY scandal that is still raging. There is no critical eye turned on the museums, the performing arts companies… anything really. The Arts, in the ABC’s estimation, are all about entertainment and inclusiveness. The cult of niceness has triumphed uber alles, and no crook or klutz need fear being exposed by the ABC. Radio National is the only place where there are a few remaining pockets of intelligence, but it shouldn’t take long to eliminate these hardy weeds.
Naturally, when funding is pulled, the one thing left standing is the idiotic TV arts program, Art Works, now in its third season! Banal, PC, insipid, this joke of a program has consistently scored the most dismal ratings. If arty types like me don’t want to watch it, why would any member of the general public tune in?
I hate to repeat myself, but when there is no critical understanding of the arts, merely an “Oooh! Ah!” approach, there is very little to engage hearts and minds. When every commentator is an admirer, the result is boring and untrustworthy. When there are all sorts of ‘special’ categories of person that are beyond criticism, there can be no credible assessment of quality.
The ABC is gutting its arts coverage so it can devote more resources to a “digital platform” with which it hopes to capture a younger audience. In other words, so it can continue the process of dumbing down, abandoning its traditional, rusted-on audience in favour of a hypothetical new, young crowd. It shows the ABC bosses have no understanding of who their audience really is, or their own charter. It also repeats the greatest mistake museums and media organisations keep making: alienating an existing audence in the quest for a completely imaginary one. That pesky “young demographic” has a habit of never doing what one wants it to do, no matter how simplistic or silly you make the content.
The pandering to youth, with which the ABC is so eager to join in, began with a recognition of young people as a major consumer market. For a station that doesn’t rely on advertising revenue, to go chasing this audience is like some embarrassing dad – or auntie – trying to be king of the kids.
To run the new regime the ABC has hired a former Netflix executive who is now in charge of “content”. As there’s never much on Netflix that I want to watch it seems the same standard will apply to the ABC. I predict that this attempt to be more ‘relevant’, more ‘commercially viable’, or whatever, is guaranteed to have the opposite effect, rendering the national broadcaster more marginal than ever. Take away the arts, get rid of the political editor, watch all the sports coverage be snapped up by the commercial sector… Welcome to the Lifestyle Channel.
I don’t know why I still care about the ABC. It’s like an old long-term relationship that still inspires sentimental feelings, even though it came apart many years ago because of irreconcilable differences.
I feel much warmer about Rembrandt, who died in 1669. The new survey of the Dutch master’s work at the National Gallery of Victoria is the subject of this week’s art column. I read and wrote masses on Rembrandt about 20 years ago, at the time of another NGV show, and have never stopped being thrilled by his work. Those who think it’s all a bit too old or too brown, are advised to take a closer look.
If you’re wondering what happened with Bonnard last week, I jumped to the wrong conclusion that the Herald had held the piece. In fact they ran it in the newspaper but held it on-line, reversing the usual way they do these things. Don’t ask me why.
The film being reviewed is Red, White & Brass, which finally puts Tonga on the map of world cinema. I’d originally resigned myself to writing about the new Jennifer Lawrence movie, but it was so staggeringly awful I turned gratefully towards this Kiwi-made tale of Tongan rugby fans forming a brass band from scratch so they can watch their team play France. One of the best things about rugby is that it’s not designed solely to appeal to the young demographic.