I have fond memories of ABC’s Wednesday night programming around 2005-10 when the best comedies they had to offer used to be aired.

The first decade of the 21st Century came before the time of streaming services, so it was strictly appointment viewing. I, like many in my cohort of younger Millennials (those born in the early 90s who were in high school at this time), used to sit themselves in front of the TV for a reliable evening of laughs.

I have recently decided to re-watch some of the shows that aired during that era in preparation for the visit of Graham Linehan, the creator of sitcoms like Black Books and The IT Crowd that usually held the prime time slot on Wednesday nights, sandwiched between ABC produced content like the music quiz show Spicks and Specks and political sitcom The Hollowmen.

My other motivating drive to rewatch the comedies of this era is that I wanted to know whether I was remembering the ABC programming of this decade with the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia. Were these shows really better than what ABC produces today?

The first show I rewatched for my foray back into TV time was the Chaser’s War on Everything. An edgy-boundary-pushing current-affairs-based comedy show that caused many controversies. Notable stunts that made them the news, instead of just providing a humourous take on it (the show’s raison d’etre), were the Osama Bin Laden stunt, the Bulldogs stunt, and the John Howard’s security stunt.

Their skits were also often cause for much outrage, offence taking, and complaints.

There is no doubt that the sensibility of the ABC and its staff and journalists have always been left of centre – and this era of comedy is no exception – but at least there used to be some self-awareness which frequently served as the basis of jokes. The Chaser may have had certain biases, but in the Noughties they went after everyone and satirised those that complained in their ‘Dear ABC’ segment. That is not something that can be said of the current iteration of the Chaser, the Shovel.

Andrew Hanson – the ‘Dear ABC’ and musical parody guy responsible for the Eulogy Song that triggered a lot of letters of complaint to the ABC, and other numbers that were funny whether you agreed or not (like Stairway to Kevin and Gas Guzzler) – is back with a new musical comedy on iView.

Hanson and cast’s new show, Australian Epic, turns significant events in Australian recent history into musicals, and it is about as funny as an aneurysm (probably because it is designed to not raise the blood pressure of ABC audiences). Events it has tried to turn comically into musicals include Steven Bradbury’s win, Schapelle Corby’s (suit)case, and the children overboard incident (which they treat with the exact amount of ABC bias as you would expect).

The other comedy show I re-watched was Stupid, Stupid Man, a sitcom set in the office of a company that publishes a fictional men’s mag called ‘COQ’ or ‘Chap’s Own Quarterly’. Whilst many other comedies of this era can be rewatched on iView, this one appears not to have made the cut.

In one episode the men’s mag is forced by upper management to make a diversity hire, which – spoiler alert – doesn’t go well with hilarious consequences. I doubt you would ever see an ABC program today portray anyone with minority status as a horrible human being or hiring for diversity something that could go badly wrong (not least because we know the ABC does just this). Instead, it is up to a minor political party to create comedy that makes this point.

One modern ABC comedy called, Why are you like this? follows a friend group with an overly anxious white girl and her gay male friend and bisexual, Bangladeshi-background female friend. There is an attempt at introspection and mockery of ‘wokeness’ but is clearly pitched at an audience that holds these views.

Of course, the refrain from those that support the ABC’s current programming is that the comedy of the Noughties was from a bygone era and we now know better than to make fun of minorities or jokes that could trigger people. But is actually shows how insular the ABC has become, and probably the move away from the majority of the population watching free to air TV (including the ABC) has meant that the tax-pay-funded broadcaster only has to cater to the very small segment of Australia that prefers to get its laughs form iView rather than any of the other streaming services that are available.

Whereas previously the biases of the public broadcaster were something that those in the apparatus had enough awareness of to make jokes about that were funny to everyone. The current mob in the ABC don’t know how disconnected they are.

If you want a laugh these days, I would not recommend the ABC, except when it is a satire of the ABC.

Dara Macdonald is a co-director of the Free Speech Union of Australia, you can book tickets to Graham Linehan’s tour here.

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