New-look leadership takes shape at A.B.C.

Press, 3 November 1983, Page 17

New-look leadership takes shape at A.B.C.

NZPA Sydney The switch from the Australian Broadcasting Commission to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation is all but complete, after the appointment of Mr Geoffrey Whitehead as managing director.

The A.B.C.’s. new-look leadership is now only awaiting the addition of a staff-elected member to the board.

Mr Whitehead, aged 49, who comes from Britain via New Zealand, and was something of a “dark horse” in the race for the appointment, will be taking on one of the most important and hardest jobs in Australia.

The former director-gen-eral of Radio New Zealand and a New Zealand citizen, he says it is only natural his appointment may spark some resentment with some people feeling the job should have gone to a local. “However, broadcasting is such a complex businessthese days that I believe the people who look for a chief executive in this field are entitled to canvass the world,” he said. Contenders for the

SAUST7I,MO (INZ98.000) a year post included the. former “Melbourne Age” chief, Roriald Macdonald; the television producer, Bruce Gyngell; and the former Immigration Department head, John Menadue.

Ironically, Mr Whitehead became the subject of a minor industrial dispute less than an hour after his appointment. Journalists at the A.B.C. objected to the use of an interview recorded with Mr whitehead by Tony Bond last week, and banned any further use of the tape.

Mr Whitehead was chosen as the first managing director of the new corporation in a unanimous vote by the A.B.C.’s board of directors, and is expected to take up his new post in Sydney early in the New Year.

The former New Zealand media chief said, “It is a privilege to have been given the opportunity to contribute to public broadcasting organisations in both countries.”

Mr Whitehead laughed when told his position had been described as “mission

impossible.” “I feel I have now reached a point in my work with public broadcasting corporations at very high levels in which I can make a helpful contribution to the present phase of A.B.C. development,” he said. “All these big organisations were founded 50 years or so ago in quite different times and with different objectives. They have tried to adapt to changes in the last two decades in different sorts of ways.” Whatever the future holds for the A.B.C. — and the Dix Report made it clear changes were essential — the services it provides make a vital contribution to the quality of Australian life. Those in charge have a national asset in their care and with the appointment of the chairman, Mr Ken Myer, and his fellow board members something of a new A.B.C. philosophy is already known. But the way in which that philosophy is put into effect will be largely in Mr Whitehead’s hands;