Chronically Concerned

This article considers the evolution and role of Advisory Committees at the Australian Broadcasting Commission from its inception in 1932 until the formation of a Corporation in 1983. Although the number of 'local' Advisory Committees (for states and regions), and specialist Committees focused on programming areas, peaked at some 57 in the early 1960s, they have been almost entirely overlooked by media and other historians. The article is based on newly opened meeting papers and correspondence files of some of these Committees, part of a broader project to make the ABC's document archives more discoverable by researchers in the lead-up to the broadcaster's centenary in 2032. It considers why Advisory Committees were established and maintained, and the challenges of managing them, as well as tensions around whether they should be expert or demographically representative, and whether they should provide retrospective commentary or generate new programming ideas.