Is there anything the ABC management can get right?

Its fans – most ex-staff member – spend their days going on and on about how vital, how important the ABC is to Australia.

And then there’s the “what a good job it does” mantra … etcetera etcetera.

But when it comes to the crunch, the numbers don’t lie.

The public fiercely disagrees.

They don’t listen. They don’t watch.

The latest ratings show ABC Radio audiences in the competitive markets of Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane crashed again.

The official independent survey results show the share of listeners down for a second time this year.

ABC management spent a fortune on consultants and reviews and ended up a with a result worse than they had.

It’s got to tell you something – probably about their judgment.

But judgement doesn’t seem to matter when you’re unlikely to be held accountable for relentlessly underwhelming performance.

Like usual, ABC management answers criticism by boasting about being “Australia’s most trusted media brand”.

It’s like being ‘Australia’s number one detergent’ that still leaves stains.

They are kidding themselves.

Still the billion-dollar venture rolls on - doing what it likes, how it likes, with apparent little regard for the public it’s meant to serve.

And ABC TV is no better.

For all the back-slapping the ABC gives itself for its journalism, TV viewers choose to go elsewhere.

Not once this week has an ABC produced news bulletin or current affairs show broken past tenth place in the official nightly TV ratings.

For example, last night the 730 Report was the National Broadcaster’s most watched prime-time offering.

But it was beaten comfortably in audience terms by this year’s latest Gordon Ramsay offering, a bunch of dipsticks in the “Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here” house, and Channels 7 & 9 News.

ABC purists and management roll their eyes at these figures.

They prefer the think condescendingly of the viewing public’s appetite.

ABC execs thinks we’re all the idiots and seem to NEVER consider that - just maybe - their journalism is predictable, left-leaning, and often plain average.

There’s a certain arrogance when you’re not answerable for your failures, especially when the $1.1 billion of taxpayer cash keeps rolling in to finance your indulgence.