The ABC is Out of the Satire Business

Recent comments by the ABC’s managing director, Hugh Marks, have (finally) focused attention on the ABC’s comedy line-up. Or more precisely, the ABC comedy line-up that exists in various media commentators’ heads. You know, the people saying things like:

if a piece of guidance, even if non-binding, creates a no-go zone for ABC comedy and entertainment programs, what kind of po-faced, anodyne world might we find ourselves in?

Or maybe:

If the ABC cannot defend the occasional ugly failure produced by creative freedom, it has no business commissioning creative freedom

Or possibly even:

Should the ABC get out of comedy? Depends what day you ask me and what I’ve just watched but generally, of course not. Particularly when the other stations – and streaming services, other than Stan – aren’t doing Australian sketch or narrative comedy.

What connects all these posts (aside from all the authors having personal or family links to the ABC, so BYO grain of salt) is that they all refer to ABC comedy in the present tense. Even that last column, which does point out that the ABC isn’t currently airing any local narrative comedy, is still based on the idea that the current situation at the ABC is one that it’s possible to turn around.

Let’s be blunt: no, it’s not.

Remember how the ABC used to cover the arts? Programs for teenagers? State politics outside of Sydney? Consumer affairs? Not any more. The ABC’s all-but-stated policy over the last decade or two has been to whittle down the range of programs they offer to a very narrow selection of things that won’t cause the editorial writers at The Australian to have a go at them. Where does satire fit into this scheme? Take a fucking guess.

For those still living in some misty fantasy land where “ABC satire” is still a thing, here’s an update. The ABC axed/shuffled out the door all their satirical programming after Labor was elected in 2022. Micallef left, Sammy J left, Mark Humphries left: none of them were replaced.

“But what about The Weekly?” we hear some utter embarrassment up the back yell out. Look, the point of this rant is to point out the reality on the ground. Claiming The Weekly is anything more than feather-light “comedy news” where the jokes are just Charlie Pickering making observations in a wacky voice only backs up our argument.

And if you still don’t believe us, listen to some of Pickering’s ABC radio show TGIF. AKA the only other topical comedy the ABC makes. A show that, if anything, is even further from “satire” and “comedy news” than The Weekly is.

Oh sure, earlier this year we got one (1) episode of Always Was Tonight, easily the most satirical thing the ABC has aired in years. Some people seemed to think it was a pilot for an ongoing show. Those people were wrong then* and they’re even more wrong now. The ABC just axed their entire Indigenous department, which is a very clear sign that the ABC isn’t interested in that kind of programming. Just look at their comedy output since that particular department was axed.

There are a lot of things people remember the ABC doing in the past that they assume are still going on. “Of course the ABC still makes shows for the youth, I just don’t know about those shows because they’re not for me”. So take it from us, probably the only people left alive who are still paying serious attention to the entirety of the ABC’s comedy output year in year out: they’re out of the satire business. Of course they are; Charlie Pickering’s the only person even remotely doing it. And he’s not even remotely doing it.

As for why? Forget the usual excuses. They’re usually something like “our focus is on filling the gaps left by the commercial media”. Only wait a second, nobody in the commercial media is doing satire either. There was a relatively brief window in this nation’s history where making fun of the rich and powerful was tolerated: that window has closed.

That’s (in part) because the ABC is run by people who see themselves as important. They don’t serve the public: they want to hang out with the elite. And so they follow the lead of important people, which is why Hugh Marks said:

As part of our review of this matter, we have considered whether the guidance in the ABC Editorial Policies adequately reflects current community expectations.

We have also considered whether the relevant guidance sufficiently distinguishes between news and non-news content.

As a result, the ABC will amend its guidance as it applies to violence.

Anyone who’s stuck their head out of a car window in the last year or so knows that the “current community expectation” as far as the rich and powerful go involves downloading DIY guillotine instructions. The community are not happy with the status quo. Just quietly they’d like a national broadcaster that reflected their views via the occasional satirical comment along those lines.

To clutch at pearls and pretend otherwise is to signal exactly who you’re siding with. And it’s not the side with a sense of humour.

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*Supposedly it was “widely understood internally” that there would be more episodes. Which suggests a lot of people internally at the ABC don’t fully understand which way the wind has been blowing for satire over the last few years