ABC has ‘not had confirmation’ on $200m cuts as unions start week of action in protest
The ABC’s director of television Richard Finlayson says that the ABC and SBS have not been informed of the size of proposed federal government cuts which could strip $200m-$300m from the public broadcasters over five years.
Asked about a story on the proposed cuts in Fairfax Media this afternoon Finlayson told Mumbrella: “I have seen the story and this is all just speculation and we have had no official confirmation, as yet, to the scale of the cuts we will be receiving.”
The move comes as the two unions representing staff at the ABC and SBS, the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) and the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) moved to mobilise a public campaign against the cuts with a National Week of Action starting November 18.
The campaign will see federal opposition leader Bill Shorten, Labor politicians and leaders from the Australian arts and journalism communities join forces to launch a campaign aimed at demonstrating the strength of public opposition to the funding cuts.
“Before the election we were promised no cuts to the ABC. It’s proven to be a promise betrayed. We’ve already seen cuts, the axing of ABC international and talented and experienced staff forced into redundancy. Now the Government wants to cut even deeper and harder with up to $100m in cuts, outsourcing and the axing of internal production planned, all of which will drastically reduce the ABC’s capacity to respond to changing technology and audience demands. We must oppose these cuts,” said CPSU national president Michael Tull.
“For years, it has been abundantly clear that the ABC is an efficiently run public institution,” said Chris Warren, federal secretary of the MEAA.
“With an 84 per cent approval rating according to surveys by Essential Media, it is also a much-loved Australian institution. Now the ABC is being forced to take a knife to its operations and hack away at content and services.
“The casualties from this aren’t just the ABC jobs that are lost – audiences are being punished because of a government diktat to extract cash from the ABC. There is no public support for this decision.”
The CPSU and MEAA said the Our stories Our Future Our ABC campaign would aim to give the Australian public an opportunity to celebrate their public broadcaster and to voice their concerns about the Government’s brutal cuts.
The ABC Board in its recent ABC annual report, criticised the government for breaching pre-election statements by Prime Minister Tony Abbott not to cut funding to the public broadcaster and declare that it is satisfied that the ABC provides “value for money to Australians”.
A spokesman for the communications minister declined to comment on the reports or whether the rumoured cuts had been before cabinet.
Nic Christensen
Why not let them run ads — Then there would be no cuts to staff or content…..
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There would be sympathy if the ABC had not embarked on a 24hr news channel, a series of dubious web sites (the drum anyone?) and pared back low cost niche programs like the religion report etc. there is no obvious core contribution to cukture in much programming (various iterations of the chaser crowd, dubious comedy and a show that somehow succeeded in making julia zeniro uninteresting.
There is clearly a cabal of overstuffed shirts and pockets in the news area. And we know its bureaucracy is on an Orwellian scale. (Me Scott having added an army of pr and a very large dose of hr).
What the abc really needs is a boss who knows babies from bath water. And it does not have one.
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You can’t help but feel after the pro Liberal coverage in the Murdoch press in the lead up to the last election that Rupert might have had a bit of a say in the future of our ABC.
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The triplication of services when the ABC’s analogue radio broadcasts has the same programming in DAB+ and on-line, is one area that needs to be looked at. It costs $80 million a year to maintain all the analogue AM and FM transmitters nationally. That’s $80 million a year that could be saved for their budget without axing any of their programming. Australia will eventually be switching off analogue in the next few years anyway. ABC could do it now and save taxpayers money.
I’m not against a News 24hr channel but what is the point of the other channel ABC3? It appears to be a dumping ground for programmes previously broadcast on ABC2/ABC4 Kids. There doesn’t appear to be any point with this channel.
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I notice you haven’t used quotes for: brutal cuts
Does that mean, in your opinion, such a description is ‘fact’?
If that’s the case, many of us would disagree.
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Well Rupert Murdoch will be very happy with this result. The Coalition has no commitment to the ABC so it cuts and then Labor regains power and spends more. The ABC’s funding is far less than it got in real terms twenty years ago and despite reservations people may have about its efficiency and programming it is a public institution which should be defended. The ABC would be a much better provider if it there was a political consensus for its funding and then a critical and intelligent view brought to its programming. But all the Coalition wants is revenge and to please a media baron. Sad. Just remember Tony that just as Mr Murdoch can give he has a proven history of taking away.
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You only need to watch the 7pm news bulletin to see how the cuts are deleteriously affecting the product quality. There are throws to footage that are not ready, vision switching that doesn’t synch, wrong footage for the story being read, live crosses where the correspondent is not ready.
The rapid loss of experienced staff without sufficiently trained younger staff is really starting to show.
And it is only going to get worse.
If I had my druthers I’d keep the ABC and get rid of the government and their warped priorities. I mean $100m spent for ‘security’ for the two-day G20 conference? That’s the entire annual cut to ABC/SBS there in two days. Give me ABC any day over G20.
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