The appointment of Kim Williams as chair of the ABC may be the circuit-breaker that permits a return to the principles that made the national broadcaster a formidable media presence.

The ABC has retreated from rural Australia with barely a squeak from the Nationals; it has relentlessly chased younger audiences with little evidence they actually want to be pursued; and it has run into difficulties allowing news and current affairs celebrities and staff and casuals to voice their opinions.

Williams has hands-on experience during what the ABC once was and could stiffen the corporation’s spine. He was one of three nominations of an independent panel established to choose the best candidates for the ABC post on merit. Unlike the previous appointment when headhunters produced no compelling alternative to the prime minister’s pick, the Albanese cabinet took the panel’s advice.

Williams replaces Ita Buttrose when her five-year term expires in March. Buttrose, a pioneer in the Australian media, is widely respected but in the long view, we suspect she will be seen as a fairly inconsequential chair.

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The Williams announcement triggered alarm. One side worried about his links to Labor courtesy of his being Gough Whitlam’s son-in-law. The other side fretted about his days as Rupert Murdoch’s main man in Australia.

But the truth is that Williams has far more experience in broadcasting than his predecessors. A noted public intellectual with a long history in media and the arts, he formerly worked with the ABC in the 1980s after being the CEO of the Australian Film Commission. He spent a period with a production house and then became chair of Film Finance Corporation Australia until, due to his film industry background, Murdoch hired him to run Fox Studios and then the pay television company Foxtel. His success in making Foxtel profitable prompted Murdoch to appoint him CEO of News Limited. Williams barely lasted two years in the job.

Williams was touted as a candidate for ABC managing director in 2006 and 2016. He has a reputation in the industry as a somewhat hands-on executive. But his new job demands an acute understanding of the different roles. There is no place for a chair who wants to manage and drive decisions. Rather, the ABC board and chair may help direct the road the corporation is headed, but the managing director is at the wheel.

For his part, Williams said he had known and understood the ABC for more than 40 years but that he hoped for one change especially. “I would like to see the ABC culture transformed from being one that is obsessively interior in focus to [one] being obsessively exterior in its focus ... on audiences, on the nation, on the policy direction of the nation, on the intellect of the nation and the creativity of the nation,” he said. “The ABC has a very strong and avid interior culture, which is pretty relentless in its focus on matters of interior dialogue that at times is nothing more or less than gossip.” The Herald agrees.