The ABC, our leading online publisher?

Crikey.com.au (subscription) pulls out some enormous numbers from the Australian Broadcasting Commission's (ABC) 2007 annual report.

These are huge numbers for an online business with distribution only via free to air and digital TV. Most local online media publishers also own newspaper, magazine or radio assets that can be used to cross-promote.

For me, this points to the value of an engaged audience. ABC viewers simply care more about what they watch on ABC, that's why they're more likely to interact with the programming online.

Why do they care more? Because the programming is higher quality than 90% of the commercial pap on 7, 9 and 10; it asks as many questions as it answers, it encourages debate, it disrupts normal programming formulas, it challenges and investigates.

Praise jeebus the ABC isn't selling online advertising!

clipped from www.crikey.com.au By June 2007, the ABC was registering just under 2.4 million successful and complete downloads of podcast files each month, representing content from all ABC Radio networks, ABC News and audio from ABC Television. In the month of June 2007, audiences downloaded over two million ABC Radio programs and 1.8 million ABC Television and News videos. In 2006–07, ABC Online reached over 2.1 million unique users per month -- equivalent to 18.4% of the active Australian internet population -- and turned over 102 million page views each month. This represents a 13% increase in users and a 6% increase in page views over 2005–06. ABC Online’s average monthly audience grew by 13%, while the active monthly Australian internet population grew by 5% over the same period.