MarkColvin

I once read a news bulletin on what was then 2JJ with a fit of the hiccups. Luckily no-one recorded it. And one night on PM I started laughing uncontrollably while back announcing a story about an artwork made of rotting fish and seaweed. Luckily it was the last story of the program so I was just able to gasp out "Good night" and shut the mic.

Obviously, I'm hoping that the ABC has a healthy future. I've lived through many rounds of attacks on the organisation, and many episodes of severe cost-cutting. We "live to fight another day", as they say. But the ABC I work in is genuinely stretched thin: there's no fat whatever in the programs in Radio Current Affairs, where I work. If we have a round of cuts, have no doubt, it will hurt, and the viewer and listener is bound to notice. The BBC is not my area of expertise. It has a different funding system, of course, but its licence fee still looks cheap to me compared to what people are prepared to pay for satellite and cable services. I listen to a lot of BBC radio, mainly for documentaries and news, but also for the range of arts, drama, comedy. It's an international treasure on its own. That said, everything I know about the two organisations says that the BBC is far, far more top-heavy with unnecessary layers of management. The ABC is streamlined in comparison.

No, I've had my theories, but they've been eliminated one by one.

That's an hour and a half of fairly intensive typing. I hope I've answered the key questions: thank you very much for them. Ands many thanks to Rhiannon Treasure-Brown for facilitating this AMA. Maybe we can do it again some time.

Mark

Long story, because I was on dialysis for nearly three years, a frankly miserable time despite the best efforts of brilliant staff at Prince of Wales Hospital in Randwick. I'd probably still be going through that, three days a week for 6-7 hours at a time, if it weren't for luck and generosity. The generosity of Mary Ellen Field, who I'd met as an interviewee and a contact, and the luck that she was a remarkably good match - as close as if we'd been related. Otherwise, I faced the prospect of an average 5-8 year wait for a deceased organ. One of the people doing dialysis with me had waited eleven years, so I wasn't saguine. I'm in favour of a system that takes in lessons from countries like Spain and US States like Pennsylvania.