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It must spend less time patting itself on the back and more time being “loud in its performance”,he said.
“It needs to really focus on issues of national identity and cultural diversity. It needs to focus on education,on being a really digitally literate organisation,and to engage in areas that are much underserved in the ABC,which is in documentary,in music and the other performing arts,which are specific requirements of the[ABC] Act.”
Williams is one of the nation’s most experienced media and arts executives. He is perhaps best known for his 18 years at News Corp,where he was chief executive of pay TV company Foxtel and later CEO of News Corp’s Australian arm.
He is married to Catherine Dovey,daughter of former Labor prime minister Gough Whitlam.
Albanese said Williams’ experience made him an ideal candidate to lead the next phase for the ABC.
“Kim is someone who gets the ABC and he’s someone who understands instinctively what a national broadcaster can and should be. I congratulate him on this decision that was made by the cabinet yesterday,” Albanese said.
The chair of the ABC Alumni,a prominent group of former staffers,Jonathan Holmes,urged those viewing Williams’ appointment as a Murdoch takeover of the ABC to “think again”.
“Kim is a highly experienced media executive,but also a very strong-minded person. He will not be a nominal chair,he will be an active chair,and very interested in how to proceed with the digital transformation of the ABC,” Holmes said.
Williams said he was “as qualified as anyone to do this job”.
“I don’t mean that in a grandiloquent way,and I don’t mean it in a self-congratulatory way,or I don’t mean it pompously. I mean it just as a straight recital of experience.”
Both Williams and a spokesperson for the Labor government confirmed his appointment was the result of the merit-based appointment process,put forward by the Independent Nomination Panel following an extensive recruitment process.
Williams said the ABC “clearly has to take into account the views of the government of the day”,and maintain an appropriately professional relationship with the minister (for communications),but must act as an independent statutory authority.
He said there was always a responsibility to advocate for appropriate funding for the ABC,but he needed to immerse himself “in the more intimate detail of the internal workings and challenges of the ABC” before commenting on such matters.
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