For too long, it’s looked as though the ABC has been afraid of the arts. Over the years, Aunty has marginalised and axed arts programs, shunting them off its main channel or consigning them to obscure timeslots, like 10pm Tuesdays. Early in 2021, The Mix, which ran unheralded for seven years on ABC News, was quietly retired.

The short-lived Art Nation was terminated in 2011 and we’re now a long way from the days when magazine-style overviews such as Express and Review occupied prime-time slots, and when Sunday Afternoon offered hours of interviews, documentaries, films and feature stories. More recently, whenever the ABC has produced arts programs, its discomfort has been evident. One indication of a lack of confidence has been the push to insert comedians at any opportunity. It’s as if the operative thinking is that, unless attention to books, film, theatre, visual arts, opera and music comes with a few laughs, no one will be interested.

Arts coverage is seen as an eat-your-veggies undertaking that viewers must be baited into consuming. So with Anh Do, Aunty struck gold: a comedian who can paint and interview. Bingo, win-win for Anh’s Brush With Fame.

With that in mind, remember Critical Mass, Vulture, Mondo Thingo or Screen Time? There’s a good reason why you might not: they were deservedly brief embarrassments as the ABC attempted to apply an upbeat spin to an area it has been reluctant to tackle without gimmickry. Meanwhile, proven programs with dedicated audiences – The Book Club, At the Movies – were axed and not replaced.

It’s an unedifying history. The national broadcaster should have a flagship arts program as prominent and enduring to this vital area as Four Corners is to its current-affairs line-up.

May saw the launch of the magazine-style Art Works (ABC Plus, Wednesday, 8.30pm), hosted by Nabila Benson. Now comes the three-part Finding the Archibald (ABC, Tuesday, 8.30pm), presented by Rachel Griffiths, which suggests, among other things, that actresses might have become the new comedians. An upcoming book show will be hosted by Claudia Karvan; another on country music will be presented by Justine Clarke.

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The series about “the Archie” arrives in the popular prize’s centenary year. Producer, writer and director Griffiths endeavours to establish her cred as host by telling us that she is the daughter of an art teacher and the wife of a painter, as well as “an actor who’s spent her whole life trying to understand the human condition”.

Apparently, a survey of the Archibald’s history and consideration of what it might reflect about our country isn’t sufficient: the production requires some tricking up. So Griffiths embarks on a mission to select a single portrait that she believes “captures the changing face of Australia and will stand the test of time”.