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Education minister Chris Pyne starts petition demanding ABC keeps Adelaide production unit

Screen Shot 2014-11-19 at 9.03.37 amA government minister has started an online petition to protest against plans by the ABC to shut a production unit in South Australia – a move which has come about due to a $50m-a-year budget cuts planned by the current government.

Education Minister Christopher Pyne has created the Change.org petition after Monday night’s Media Watch program claimed the production unit would be one of the casualties along with 4-500 jobs at the public broadcaster.

In the rationale for the petition Pyne claims it it the last production unit of the ABC outside of Sydney and Melbourne, adding it has made a number of shows “targeted at individual groups within the community and are crucial to a diverse market”.

It adds: “By moving ABC TV elsewhere, it will incur unnecessary costs and remove the efficient and innovative production unit from South Australia.”

The unit is responsible for a number of hit series including the currently airing retrospective Countdown: Do Yourself a Favour which got nearly a million viewers on Sunday night, as well as The Cook and The Chef, Poh’s Kitchen and Dream Build.

The cut was one several flagged on Media Watch on Monday, although the Minister for Communications Malcolm Turnbull and the broadcaster are yet to officially announce how much money will be stripped from the budget.

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