This week I found myself thinking about the ABC.
Now let’s be clear. This is not something I am in the habit of doing. I don’t spend my days gazing off into the distance contemplating the existence of our national broadcaster.
But this week, err, I did.
Because this week I watched Australians get emotional for maybe the first time as the ABC – OUR ABC dammit – announced exactly how it was going to deal with a $254m funding cut.
Suddenly things got personal. Suddenly millions of Australians worried that THEIR favourite ABC show was on the chopping block.
And so I found myself inadvertently reading op-eds and blogs and comments about the ABC shows and presenters and hosts and, you know, British cartoon pigs people didn’t want axed. Hosts who meant something to people. Programs – be they on TV or radio – which play an important role in people’s lives. Muddy puddle loving pigs that kept small children entertained while dinner is being made.
And in the swirl of opinion I was forced to think about what exactly the ABC means to me.
Turns out it means a hell of a lot.
Because the truth of the matter is, dear old Aunty has chaperoned me through most of my life.
As a child of the 70s, Maria and Luis and Mr Hooper and Big Bird on Sesame Street on Channel 2 taught me how to count and sing my ABCs and that ‘one of these things is not like the other’ long before I went to school.