FROM THE ARCHIVE The Control of Broadcasting
EDITOR FORWARD
This year we celebrate the incredible milestone of 90 years of the ABC! As such, AQ has dived back into the archives to find our earliest mention of Aunty – 1936 – only 4 years after the ABC’s creation. And it’s a cracker of a time-capsule!
An entertaining and familiar read, the piece reminds us that the technology might have changed but the issues are largely the same. Evident is the cultural cringe of a young country already being pulled between the polarities of the UK and the US; the ready stereotypes of the new and old world; and the very first seeds of the tension at the heart of media ownership in Australia – the unwitting erosion of which would lead to the empires of the Murdochs and the Packers, and all that has come with it…
The author, Norman Cowper, was a founding director and Chairman of the AIPS, as well as helping to found the original United Australia Party, the precursor to the Liberal Party. He would later be knighted and was a great friend to the AIPS right up until his death in 1987 at the age of 90.
Once again, congratulations to the ABC and, from one old bird to another, AQ wishes you the strength and robustness to withstand another 90 years.
– Grant Mills, Editor
erhaps, however, "the influence of broadcasting upon the mind and spirit of the nation, the immense issues which are consequently involved, and the urgent necessity in the national interest that the broadcasting service should at all times be conducted in the best possible manner and to the best advantage of the people," make it desirable that we should not be
