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Hi All,
From an ABC source:
STARSTUFF UPDATE
Sadly the ABC has decided to ignore the hundreds of complaints it has received regarding its uneducated and ill informed decision to axe the popular StarStuff program.
The ABC is managing the fallout by redirecting all letters of support for StarStuff and its host Stuart Gary to something it’s calling “Audience Research”.
Stuart Gary has been ordered not to answer any e-mails about StarStuff and not to forward them to ABC Managing Director Mark Scott, but instead send them on to Audience Research.
Audience Research sounds very important, but it’s actually the junior office assistant to NewsRadio Manager Helen Thomas.
Helen Thomas is one of the three key ABC management people involved in killing StarStuff, the other two are Head of National Radio Networks Margaret Cassidy, and Head of Radio Sue Howard.
ABC management was always expecting an initial flood of complaints, but they also knew that this would fade away after a few weeks which is exactly what’s happened.
So despite what they say, the truth is, complaints to the taxpayer funded ABC are a total waste of time, because ABC management really don’t give a stuff about what you want. They know all they have to do is wait out the storm, and they’ll get away with it!
What does upset ABC management (because it makes them look bad publicly) are letters of complaint to newspaper editors, especially to the big national papers like the Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the Herald Sun ,the Daily Telegraph, The Courier Mail, The Canberra Times, the Sun Herald, the Sunday Telegraph and so on, you get the idea!
So if anyone out there still has a copy of the complaints they sent the ABC about the axing of StaStuff, then I urge you to send them to the Letters to the Editor departments of the major dailies, it really will be our last hope to save this show!
As for the politicians, it seems the Communications Minister doesn’t want to get involved because it would interfere with the independence of the ABC.
However it seems the ABC isn’t being completely honest with the Ministers office.
The ABC told the minister’s office StarStuff is being axed because it doesn’t fit in with newsradios move from block programming (which means long slabs of a single program like StarStuff) to a continuous rolling news service.
But it appears ABC Management didn’t tell the minister’s office whole truth.
They left out some important facts which the Ministers office should have known.
Like all the new block programming recently introduced by Helen Thomas, such as her new sports program “Weekend half time “ which is block programming just like StarStuff, but costs three times more to produce and goes twice as long, and oh yeh! It’s sport not science!
Then there’s Helen Thomas’ decision to introduce an additional 24 hours of block overseas programming every weekend. Newsradio used to broadcast from 0600 to midnight, but Helen Thomas cut that by 12 hours so it now usually only broadcasts from 0600 to 1200 noon, the rest of the time some 18 hours per day is almost all wall to wall BBC or WRN which is not only block programming, but block overseas programming. And Thomas has made similar changes to the weekday programming schedule which often see’s the BBC take over at 1906 on a weeknight! And remember these are AEST, which is the middle of the afternoon in Perth.
None of these facts were included in the ministerial briefing given by the ABC in relation to your concerns about the axing of StarStuff.
And for the record, other examples of significant block programming on NewsRadio which hasn’t been axed, includes Friday night and weekend AFL Football, with each game involving three hours of block program coverage.
Then there’s the daily hour of American National Public Radio’s “All things considered” every lunch time, which is yet another example of block programming.
Of course this isn’t the first time the ABC’s management has failed to tell our elected leaders the whole truth about StarStuff.
Hansard shows that during the Senate Estimates into ABC funding on February 13th and 14th 2006 question 85 (outcome1, output 1.1, 1.2,1.3 topic StarStuff on NewsRadio Hansard Page: ECITA 136) fails to answer the actual question asked by Senator Ronaldson.
That’s what spin doctors call “a non denial-denial”.
For ABC Managing Director Mark Scott the facts are simple! It’s not rocket science, at least not in a hard way.
StarStuff is Australia’s most successful astronomy program which has been going for nine years with over 400 episodes under its belt, and which as an hour long program every Sunday night consistently rated better than 8 per cent and even the Saturday night replay the following week still got better than 6 per cent according to The ABC’s own national ratings figures.
Why won’t Mark Scott just reverse what everyone else in the real world sees as an ill informed and un-educated decision by a network that’s lucky when it rates one per cent?
Mr Scott should reverse the decision to axe StarStuff, and he should move it and its host to the Radio National Science Unit where the show can develop rather than face constant attack by those 1 percenters who kill off science in favour of sport.
Hmmm ...
Best,
Les D
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