Ministers' total control over broadcasters has been disastrous.

OCCASIONALLY, usually by accident (sometimes if they think nobody is listening) politicians say what they really believe.

''I have unfettered legal power,'' Communications Minister Stephen Conroy told an obscure conference in New York in September. ''If I say to everyone in this room, 'If you want to bid in our spectrum auction you'd better wear red underpants on your head', I've got some news for you. You'll be wearing them on your head.''

Conroy was clearly having a bit of fun. But he's right. He has complete, arbitrary and absolute control over who broadcasts on the airwaves and the circumstances in which they broadcast, and that control has been disastrous for television consumers.

Let's call this the ''red underpants'' theory of why Australian TV is so bad. Australia seems to have completely missed the great television renaissance. In the US and Britain, audiences are being treated to some of the most brilliant high-quality television the world has ever seen - think of everything from Mad Men to Breaking Bad to The Thick of It.