The majority of Australians believe that ABC television is not worth paying a single cent for.
According to an independent study conducted by True North Research, more than half (52.6 per cent) of those interviewed said if they had a choice, they wouldn’t be prepared to pay anything for access to the national broadcaster’s television content in its current form, while the other respondents said they would only be willing to pay (on average) $2.94 per month.
The study also found that most Australians perceive that the ABC has an inherent political bias. READ NEXT
When asked whether they think the ABC is “more left wing” or “more right wing”, almost two thirds (66.1 per cent) of respondents said the national broadcaster was more “left wing.”
Furthermore, almost four out of five Australians (79.2 per cent) would not subscribe to ABC television if it were to become a subscription service like streaming giant Netflix.
Among the ABC’s core audience of those aged 55 and over, just 15 per cent of respondents said they would be willing to pay for a Netflix-style subscription service if it replaced the national broadcaster’s TV service. READ MORE:Media show trial is not the answer for victims of rape|ABC learned nothing from its Pell mistakes|‘Get Porter’ a media disgrace|‘Don’t call predators pedophiles’: ABC tells reporters|Paul Barry, Louise Milligan do battle
Similarly, that same demographic was also of the firmest belief — more so than the younger cohorts of viewers — that the ABC was “more left wing” (71 per cent).
Of the respondents who identified as Labor voters, 60 per cent said they thought the ABC leaned “left”; of those who said they were Liberal voters, 71 per cent said the broadcaster favoured the progressive side of politics. The vast majority of Greens-aligned participants in the study (78 per cent) also said ABC TV was “more left wing”.
