There were mixed responses to the new appointment of acting Managing Director David Anderson to the ABC’s top job at a packed session of the Sydney Writers Festival (SWF). Previous MD and current SWF chair Mark Scott gave the kind of glowing endorsement that might have been a job reference. ‘I think David Anderson is the most outstanding ABC MD for a generation,’ Scott told the ‘Whose ABC?’ session at SWF.
‘He knows the place backwards. He started … picking up tea-towels at the old production studios down in Melbourne. He’s run the back office of ABC television and he’s fronted it. He’s commissioned programming and done ABC strategy … you’ve got to be a managing director who the staff respect. You’ve got to be a managing director who the staff are going to follow and who the staff believe in and I think he passes all those tests. ‘
