Transmission interrupted: Australia’s international television broadcasting

ABSTRACT Australia’s efforts to pursue public diplomacy through a government-funded international television service have been sporadic and ineffectual. The reasons for failure lie in the way such efforts have been pawns in other political conflicts and relationships – conflicts between Coalition governments and the ABC; conflicts between Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard that dominated the Labor government from 2010 onwards; and the wish of key players in both major parties to please Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. The Abbott Government’s 2014 axing of the ten-year contract with Australian Television slashed Australia’s international broadcasting capacity. Domestic agendas have repeatedly trumped what should be a tool of international policy.