Will Tony Abbott bring ads to the ABC?

Wil Anderson.

It looks pretty certain that the Coalition will win the federal election in September and so there's one thing that I want leader Tony Abbott to make clear early on in this long campaign: will he push for TV commercials on the ABC? Commercials destroyed SBS when they were introduced, and the station is now not watchable. ABC chief Mark Scott appears to be softening up the audience by packing the time slots between regular programming with self-referential ads, including those goofy ones where large, soft, white balloons explode and release bundles of coloured balls. We also get bunches of ads promoting future programs. Wil Anderson of Gruen Planet brought up the issue of ads on the ABC at least a year ago on the show, but it appears that since then the number of ads on the ABC has increased. Everybody knows that the Coalition hates the ABC - they worked extremely hard to control it during the Howard years - and so it seems reasonable, if not perfectly logical, to ask what plans its leaders have for dear Aunty now that the political scales have shifted so startlingly in favour of the Right since PM Gillard's election announcement last week. Fess up, Tones: are you going to take the ABC commercial?