Russell Coker wrote:
Also given that the Liberal party wants to cancel the NBN I don't think that they are in a position to withdraw funding from the ABC or the SBS.
Perhaps they are still sore about http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3713148.htm http://www.abc.net.au/technology/articles/2013/02/21/3695094.htm
The SBS caters to minority groups that don't have their interests represented well in other areas - for example a significant fraction of Melbourne's population is of Greek ancestry but only the SBS provides shows in Greek on free TV.
SBS (and 3ZZZ) also provide radio "in your language". What I watch & hear is rarely something I would go looking for, so I appreciate someone curating it for me. Cf. when I walk into the Indian grocer's, I have no idea which bollywood films are worth watching, so I skip them all and what I end up seeing is Yet Another Superhero Film III that my brother bittorrented. ABC obviously provides Classic FM and Triple J, as well as these, though I mostly only listen to Classic FM (and its community counterpart, 3MBS). curl -s http://media.on.net/radio/playlist.list | grep ABC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3ZZZ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3MBS Wandering further off-topic, Unless the Federal Government commits to giving digital community radio a future in the upcoming budget, vital digital community radio stations will be switched off. http://committocommunityradio.org.au/