Former ABC boss Geoffrey Whitehead, the primary Managing Director of the ABC from 1983 – 1986, has died, aged 90.
He died in New Zealand on Christmas Eve, ABC experiences.
Taking the reins of the general public broadcaster newly corporatised below the ABC Act (1983), Whitehead confronted the monumental job of bringing it into the trendy period whereas grappling with the broader existential questions: what goal the ABC ought to serve, and the way greatest to serve it?
Whitehead was appointed from a world area of candidates following a profession working internationally as a print, radio and tv journalist.
As historian Ken Inglis writes in Whose ABC? The Australian Broadcasting Company 1983-2006, Whitehead stood out from the shortlist of six candidates by eloquently presenting his technique for the brand new ABC. His complete 19-page utility to the panel pointed to “an important determination: how far will public radio and tv go, in competing with the personal sector? How aggressive ought to its programming and advertising be? As soon as that has been settled, then program choices could be made; workers with the aptitude to make the packages recruited and retained; and the manager construction amended as essential to realize the established goals.”
Whitehead’s expertise in media spanned greater than 4 many years and three nations: Britain, Australia and New Zealand.
Educated at London College, the place he obtained a Diploma in Worldwide Affairs, he spent the primary 20 years of his profession working as a journalist in England, largely as a Westminster and Whitehall political correspondent, together with for Reuters information company and the BBC, the place he turned deputy political editor.
As Radio New Zealand’s assistant director-general from 1974 to 1976 he helped set up the brand new organisation created following the division of the NZBC into separate statutory our bodies. He assumed the director-general’s job, the place he remained till 1983.
Whitehead held the position of ABC chief government from 1983 till 1986. His 1988 e book Contained in the ABC detailed his typically turbulent three-year interval main the ABC.
“I consider the positive aspects (of the interval) outnumber the losses,” he wrote. “We did change attitudes, we had begun to make the ABC a extra open company; extra open to accountability in Parliament, extra open to the general public and extra open to concepts from workers. I look again on my interval as one by which the mould was damaged and main reforms begun, in order that the ABC had an opportunity to turn into extra related to extra Australians.”
In Tending the Flame of Democracy (2004) Whitehead argued that the well being of democracy relied on governments tending to the wants of individuals as residents, not simply as customers.
Whitehead remained a staunch supporter of the ABC and public broadcasting to the tip of his life. In October 2022, on the ABC’s ninetieth birthday, he argued on the ABC Alumni web site that the ABC’s position required formal consolidation: “[By] enshrining the nationwide broadcaster, by means of an all-party Declaration, as an establishment that’s integral to our democracy and to which all residents have a proper.”
Taking problem with the Liberal Celebration’s 2018 Federal Council coverage decision that the ABC needs to be privatised, he wrote: “It’s well timed for Western governments to begin constructing all-party declarations to the world that they see their conventional nationwide public service broadcasters – just like the 90-year-old ABC – as vital democratic establishments having a give attention to serving their individuals’s wants as residents somewhat than their desires as customers, and so serving to us meet the brand new challenges all of us face.”
ABC Chair Kim Williams stated, “As the primary Managing Director of the newly created Australian Broadcasting Company, Geoffrey was decided to shed its older mindset because the ‘Fee’, which was redolent with many outmoded administrative approaches and rigid practices, Mr Williams stated.
“Geoffrey Whitehead was impatient for change, nevertheless he discovered resistance in lots of distributed pockets and ultimately felt compelled to resign and transfer again to New Zealand after three turbulent years. His frustration provoked sympathy and disappointment equally. Many will recall the massive activity he inherited and recognise the customarily intransigent resistance he encountered.”
“I’m happy to say that the ABC is now a really way more open and responsive place to vary and innovation than in these early days”, Mr Williams stated.
He’s survived by his companion, Religion Barber.
