Episode notes
Ninety years ago, in July 1932 a radio announcer, Conrad Charlton, said these words into a microphone: “This is the Australian Broadcasting Commission”.Public broadcasting was born in Australia.
In 1956, the year of the Melbourne Olympics, his son, Michael Charlton, did the same for the launch of ABC television in Australia.
So for more than sixty years the ABC was an analogue, free-to-air, strictly advertising free, national media service, first radio then television as well.
In the city centres, where most of us live, and across rural and regional Australia, it became a national fixture in many, probably most, Australian lives.
Then came the digital revolution which fundamentally changed everything. And along came the internet. Global media, apart from public broadcasting, were in ... ... Read more