Williams doesn’t make the distinction between public and private ownership. He says the magic metric is the quality of a media organisation’s engagement and the key goal is capturing a larger share of the audience by being more broadly appealing to the public.

Williams calls it the quest for performance, relevance and excellence. It’s a quest that is under way at the ABC and, in layman’s terms, means the public broadcaster needs to give the public what it wants, and make the ABC a more contemporary organisation that pitches its wares at a broader church.

Seen through this lens, Williams’ captain’s choice to appoint Marks is not surprising. It would seem that there were no internal candidates that threw their hat in the ring, and of the outsiders, there wasn’t a long queue of executives that had the same level of experience as Marks.

But Marks’ appointment won’t be a popular one. Here is a taste from the SMH/Age reader comments: “Your new-look ABC – 7.30, Four Corners, Foreign Correspondent, Media Watch and Q+A to be replaced (respectively) by A Current Affair, 60 Minutes, Love Island, The Block and more Love Island. Planet America to be hosted by Scott Cam and Kyle Sandilands.”

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Marks is not the first ‘commercial’ outsider to be parachuted into ABC’s most senior executive position. Lawyer and ex-Murdoch executive Michelle Guthrie assumed that role in 2016 and was sacked by then-chairman Justin Milne, two years later.

She was replaced by internal pick David Anderson, who has been in the position for six years. The longest-serving ABC chief executive from outside its ranks in recent history was former Fairfax executive Mark Scott, who ran it for 10 years until 2016.

If being a denizen of the commercial media world is a mark against Marks, then his leadership of Nine during a period that has drawn questions about company culture will be a bigger target for the critics.

The cultural scandal that is currently engulfing Nine wasn’t publicly apparent during Marks’ tenure and on Tuesday he said he wasn’t aware of the issues. But given he was the CEO, he probably should have been.

The culture question will linger as Marks finds his footing and steering the broadcaster to the destination cherished by Williams won’t be a walk in the park. And Marks will have plenty of backseat drivers, from every corner of the country, telling him how to do his job.

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