Had a very interesting chat last night at the FED with Mark Scott, Managing Director of the ABC. If you didn't make the event you can listen to the podcast. The premise of what it means to be a 'public broadcaster' over the next few years is set for a collision course with dramatic changes in the media consumption behaviour of audiences as well as the new economics of funding content.

The ABC have been successful lately in nurturing local content programming like The Chaser and Summer Heights High, which might have otherwise got lost in the reality TV mire of commercial TV networks. Both shows have done well in engaging younger viewers through building audience networks on new platforms like Myspace.

Experimentation is good news for Australian media - after all, if any broadcaster is in a financial position to take risks with the distribution model of content - it is the ABC. IP based distribution of ABC content is growing - by all accounts by the end of 2008, the ABC will have facilitated 50 million downloads of its shows. That raises two questions. Firstly, should ABC content be provided to local audiences unmetered through ISPs as part of an expanded notion of public distribution? And secondly, is the future of public broadcasting really broadcast at all?

Part of Mark's vision of the future was a multitude of new ABC channels. On this point, I disagree. In ten years, where most of the world's media content will be delivered on demand, time shifted by a PVR or streamed through an IP network - the concept of a 'channel' will have little meaning. The real question for the ABC is how it can continue to feed the long tail of Australian content, while becoming useful as a community platform for the discovery and distribution of local stories. And that's a scary thought.

As Mark observed, when you are held accountable at Senate Estimate Meetings for every piece of content, whether it be a TV show or a talkback call - the notion of unmoderated social media is not an easy one to countenance.