ABC to face ‘$50m cuts’ claims Media Watch as Turnbull plays down impact
Government cuts to the ABC are set to see a further 6 per cent wiped form its budget, taking around $50m per year further from the public broadcaster’s coffers with between 4-500 jobs set to go.
The claims were made on the broadcaster’s Media Watch show last night, with host Paul Barry saying with the loss of the Australia Network and other cuts already made it means a loss of around 9 per cent of the budget.
However speaking on Q&A immediately afterwards Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull sought to downplay the cuts, saying they would be closer to “5 per cent”.
Barry said ABC 2 and 3 would be saved, whilst Radio National will have cuts limited to 2 per cent, however the state-based 7.30 shows on Fridays are going, whilst Lateline will be “cut back, but it stays on the main channel”.
On top of that news bureaus in Tokyo, Bangkok, New Delhi and New Zealand will “be crunched with a claimed loss of 20 jobs” and TV production in South Australia outside of news and current affairs will be “shut down” with Classic FM set to take big cuts as $6m is cut from radio.
Barry said the ABC claimed most of the cuts would come from back office functions, “but once that money is returned to Canberra the ABC will have nothing left to invest in an audience that is changing rapidly”.
Management is expected to formally announce where the cuts will come in an address to staff later this week. Last week the broadcaster postponed its Christmas party for the TV division slated for Thursday as management expected to make an announcement on that day.
Speaking on Q&A Turnbull said the cuts would “average over five years about five per cent off the top, that includes everything since the budget” but said it does not include the cancellation of the Australia Network contract.
He added “anyone who cannot find five per cent out of efficiencies is not even trying”.
The ABC declined to comment on the scale of cuts, but the announcement is expected later this week.
Last week the ABC revealed its 2015 programming line up which included a number of new and returning shows.
As part of that announcement it was revealed the iView player will make content no longer available for streaming available for purchase via iTunes opening up a new revenue stream.
Alex Hayes
Get rid of ABC News 24. Look at its costs vs audience. People who need news 24/7 either get it from the internet or cable TV. Its ratings are so hopeless and most of its content is the same bulletin script repeated over and over, crosses to pointless media stuff and re-runs or simulcasts of ABC1 programs. Waste of money.
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JNK …except in moments of natural disasters like hurricanes, fires and floods, ABC24 provides an invaluable service to ALL Australians – not just those with pay tv and internet.
In this time of heightened ‘terror’ alerts, I would have thought a national television news service was a matter of national security. (Hey look – I got to play the fear card!)
it’s money well spent.
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I’d like the ABC to be more like the BBC and I’d be happy to pay a license fee to see it.
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Mark Scott should go. He’s clearly not managing at all. For starters, he should have initiated this process as it was totally obvious. Second, there should be clarity within the ABC about where cuts should fall but it is readily obvious that the dominant personalities (Media Watch presenters always rank highly, along with Four Corners hosts) are not about to give up the controls of their gravy train.
The fact is Scott loves bureaucracy. The number of people he’s added to the “soft” executive is ridiculous and it was already way overweight. The finance function is nowhere near what it would be in other networks. Executive travel is a joke. Production compabies are on soft deals and so on.
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Tony “stop the boats” Abbott said “no cuts to the ABC” so of course this should have been expected.
He’s an A-grade C.
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The ABC is finally finding out what the rest of the media has known for at least the last five years – there is no easy ride any more. Newspaper and mag company wage slaves have found this out hardest of all followed by the commercial TV and radio stations and a growing number of ad and marketing operations. Of course, most “mahogany row” types manage to survive and pay themselves accordingly for firing others. Yes, Abbott lied – but, hey, he’s a politician and will say whatever suits the situation and then do the opposite. So suck it up, public service types – welcome to the real world.
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@ Adam Paull – if the TV is still working in a time of local natural disaster I would imagine other FTA networks would be covering it live – they always do. And anyway, I would argue that the vast majority nowadays turn to either their smartphones or the radio for up-to-the-minute information in times of crisis…not the TV.
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Get rid of the Pravda of the airways, if they’re not willing to be balanced, cut their funding by 50%
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If the ABC were more like the BBC, it would be expanding in Australia rather than shrinking. The troublesome problems with the ABC are bound up in its own infrastructure, and the weak actions and volatile reactions of nervous politicians.
The wacky state system doesn’t help it either, but the enemy within is a big problem not necessarily associated with the ones already mentioned. Like many ensemble theatre companies, an almost incestuous core has been allowed to develop at the ABC, which intellectually shifts the blame for poor performance and low quality to imagined outside interests.
Having said this, the ABC is still the finest production, telecaster and broadcaster in the country.
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@ Huh?
Cannot agree with you on Mark Scott for a number of reasons. Scott came to the ABC in about 2005 from memory – maybe a bit later. In that time, there have been massive efficiency drives and all that money has gone back into new services – all of which we would be much poorer without. iView is just one of those. That has been the market leader for so long and the other FTAs are still trying to develop something comparable. Many of the programs run on the smell of an oily rag – particularly radio but also some in house programs too – Australian Story for one. Beyond that, ABC24 and ABC2 have been funded out of efficiencies along with their digital deliveries in all their forms.
Overall, he has done a good job and continues to do so in difficult times.
Bear in mind that the last two reviews of the ABC (during the Howard era when it clearly was not as efficient as it is now) demonstrated that the ABC was more efficient than its commercial counterparts – the second review, embarrassingly, so much so that they refused to release it! The Executive Summary was leaked which is how we know this much.
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@zumabeach
Insiders at the ABC tell me that every department has been doing the work needed to adjust for the cuts. Knowing that the government would break its promise, they have different scenarios planned, depending on the level of cuts.
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Semper fidelis. Where is your loyalty? To fellow media and broadcast professionals, to the highest caliber, quality investigative journalists, presenters and producers this nation has. Why not make a stand for excellence?
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You beauty! Bring it on!
Until Mark Scott, public servant, stops taking a salary of over $800,000 a year, the ABC’s budget should be cut at 10% per year.
That’s the only language they’ll understand.
Keep on cutting – you’ll have the unreserved support of 90% of Australians.
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@Mike: you are buying spin. Scott has done very little indeed that resembles innovation. He certainly has done nothing that compares with the Brian Johns period. And iView was well under way when he arrived.
@Cathy: the ABC is a shadow of its former self. Rarely asks interesting questions. Rarely produces interesting answers. There are good talents there but none of them is under threat at all.
The place needs some tough love. Which is why Scott is the wrong man.
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Mike I concur. The department heads I know have had to forego their usual workload since the Budget to make the cuts – to the extent that strategic issues that need to be attended to are lagging.
And Mike do you have a link to the leaked Executive Summary?
We have an administration that commissions independent reviews, don’t get the results they want, so they engage a ‘friendly’ to write a report that meets their pre-ordained ideology. The ABC is hardly a hotbed of profligacy – hardly the 80s and 90s commercial networks.
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@JG – Here is a link to the leaked Exec summary. Cannot remember if it went to Crikey first but it is on their site: http://www.crikey.com.au/wp-co.....6c3b93.pdf
There has been a lot of expensive time wasting as the ABC has had to develop scenarios for unknown cuts.
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@Huh? It is worth noting that prior to Scott coming in, the ABC had disestablished its few digital offerings – this was under Russell Balding. Scott came on board in July 2006. iView went to air in its earliest incarnation in July 2008. It was certainly substantially put together during his time by Ian Carroll and his team.
I believe that we agree, though, that the ABC has been a hotbed of innovation – particularly compared to its peers. The only period when things came to a grinding halt was the Jonathon Shier period where nothing much happened apart from internal reorganisation which was sensibly abandoned by Balding after he left.
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Mike, you are clouding an ideological issue with knowledge and facts.
Thank you for the link. Your points about Scott getting things done (esp. digital) are true. (God bless the dear departed Ian Carroll). Shier certainly was a boat-anchor but fortunately the ABC has been catching up on that lost time. Their digital and regional coverage, and local drama and commissioning are superb. I agree with the PWC report – legal could do with either some paring or some commercial nous. In order to protect the taxpayer funds, they seem to have interpreted it as doing everything they can to stop things being done!
But being first doesn’t come cheaply. Australia waited for the commercial interests to lead the way with digital delivery of television and radio. Sadly that didn’t happen and good old Aunty filled the void. Now the Grand Aunties can see what can be done and are starting to extract their collective digits.
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