Q+A was built for another era of media, and died with it
Once a cornerstone of the national political conversation, Q+A ultimately couldn’t survive an increasingly fractured media landscape.
After nearly two decades and 17 seasons, the ABC’s Q+A is dead. As first reported by Capital Brief’s John Buckley, the program that once defined Monday night television, helped set the national political discussion, and turned Twitter into a Thunderdome is set to be axed.
The long-predicted demise follows years of hollow afterlife, shambling along in diminished form for a shrinking audience.
When Q+A launched in 2008, it landed in a very particular media ecosystem. Twitter was just emerging, Facebook hadn’t yet cannibalised the internet, and Monday night TV still had undeniable cultural gravity.
There weren’t many spaces where politicians had to directly face ordinary voters and risk unscripted interactions. It made for high-stakes, semi-chaotic television.
