The other Auntie

I walk into the ABC’s offices in Sydney’s Ultimo, and into the boardroom in the radio section. Fergus Pitt has, sensibly, asked not to see my standard presentation about what we’re doing in the UK: he’s seen it all before. Instead, he’s keen to understand what I’ve learnt so far in my global trip.

So, earlier that day, I’d sat in a café I knew next to Sydney’s Central Station, and – over a flat white accompanied by toast and Vegemite – scribbled notes in my red notebook (purchased in Stockholm during Radio Days Sweden) using a cheap Radio France pen (given to me in Paris during the WorldDMB general assembly). I hoped I’d got a story or two to tell.

I set up the Mac, and say hello to some old friends, as others wander into the room. All of a sudden, I hear a voice from Yorkshire – and one of the brightest people I worked with at the BBC, designer Sean McVeigh, is shaking my hand. He’s made the leap from the BBC to the ABC, and started work here the week I saw him. One of the more surreal moments in my travels. (Later, over a beer, he claims he’s actually Canadian.)

The ABC is the first public service broadcaster I’ve seen since the CBC in Canada, and it’s interesting to see the differences between the two ‘Aunties’ – both the ABC and the BBC are known affectionately by this name. Like the BBC, the ABC’s services are commercial free; but unlike the BBC, the ABC is funded directly by government grant. So, every three years, the ABC has to wander into the government, cap in hand, and ask for some more money.

The ABC is also different online. Fergus shows me the equivalent to BBC Music: a resource that, like the BBC, uses Musicbrainz, but unlike the BBC is rather more relaxed about using content from other people. I can click through to view YouTube videos of artists, for example, as well as ABC content.

He points me to Black Saturday, a compelling resource on the bush fires from a few years ago. A nicely-presented timeline links to material from the ABC, as well as the photo-sharing site Flickr.

And he shows me Triple J’s “Hottest 100” for this year. I wrote extensively about the chart for last year, and how clever Triple J had been; this year, I noticed, they’d built on what worked, and added some nice new features – since the countdown happened on Australia Day, a national holiday, they linked to the ‘Triple J countdown parties‘ happening right across the country with a Google Maps mashup. I like the idea of pretending the entire country is partying because of your content!

The ABC seems to be both innovating (albeit in the way that a large public service broadcaster does), but it also seems to be significantly more relaxed about using third-party content than the BBC (while working within the API guidelines for each piece of content). For better or for worse, the ABC is also using lots of different technology in each of its websites: which sometimes means interesting, innovative content, and sometimes means a peculiarly un-joined-up user experience, with duplicated content in different sections of its website.

But for all of the quirks of the ABC website, it’s clear that there is significant innovation going on, and for public service broadcasters, this Auntie is just as interesting as the Auntie back home.

The photo is me listening to ABC Radio National on DAB+ – where they broadcast pictures as well as the audio. More on that in a few days; and we take a trip to Australia’s other public broadcaster.