Efficiency review author Peter Lewis formally appointed to ABC board
Former Seven West Media chief financial officer Peter Lewis has officially been appointed to the board of the ABC.
Last month Mumbrella revealed Lewis, who also authored a report on cost efficiencies the public broadcaster could make, was a front runner for the vacant seat.
At the time the proposed appointment drew opposition from group Friends of the ABC which said “hit would be improper and highly inappropriate” for him to take a seat on the board.
The news comes the day after the ABC board met to consider how it would go ahead with cost savings imposed on it in the Federal Government’s budget in May, with news, children’s and science shows all up for cuts.
The bloated ABC needs trimming. Even ABC staff admit this.
When will well-meaning nitwits learn that the ‘C’ in ‘ABC’ stands for “Corporation” not “cultural institution”. The management and board of that corporation have to properly administer over a billion dollars of taxpayers money each year and so could do with someone with “commercial media finance” experience.
CJ …there has never been any suggestion that the ABC hasn’t properly administered its appropriation, year in year out, publishing the outcomes in Annual Reports and appearing before Senate Estimates to account to our representatives. In all likelihood Peter Lewis is virtuous but the volatile fortunes of commercial media hardly stand incumbents as a ‘rolled gold’ exemplars of better judgement.
Yeah, cos commercial TV is the epitome of cost efficiency !
With its constant attacks on the ABC and new restrictions on the freedom of the press, it is doubtful any government in the history of Australia has show as much lack of understanding of how the media should operate in a democracy, as our currant federal government. Peter Lewis might do a good job, but he will be operating in a demised environment now being imposed on Australia.
Unfortunately the last efficiency review of the ABC commissioned by the Howard government, and carried out externally by KPMG, concluded that “The ABC provides a high volume of outputs and quality relative to the level of funding it receives… the ABC appears to be a broadly efficient organisation.”
This certainly wasn’t what the conservatives wanted to hear…convinced it was a bloated hive of left wing insurrection. So here we have another conservative government doing the same thing again except keeping tighter control over the results of the ‘review’ to prevent future embarrassment.
Why do conservative government fear scrutiny? Have they been spoiled by News Corp?