ABC folds regional operations into news division in major restructure
Public broadcaster ABC has flagged a divisional restructuring that will see its regional bureau folded into the news division, with an unspecified number of redundancies incoming.
In an email to staff on Thursday, the broadcaster’s managing director David Anderson flagged the change as a part of the wider organisational shift that will take place on 1 July.
He said this will be the most significant content restructure at ABC since 2017.
The news came after ABC moved to a five-year funding term in the latest federal budget with $1.1 billion allocated annually.
“This restructure will also assist with the Corporation’s ability to respond to significantly rising costs of running the organisation which are generating ongoing budgetary pressure for the ABC,” Anderson said.
As the regional operations join the ABC News division led by director of news, Justin Stevens, Anderson said it will “streamline productions processes as ABC moved to a digital-first model”.
ABC currently has around 600 “content makers” in regional Australia in 58 locations, including 60 additional journalists added after deals with Google and Facebook via the media bargaining code.
The second component includes the creation of a new “content division” led by the inaugural chief content officer, Chris Oliver-Taylor, who was Netflix’s director of production until earlier this year.
While capital city local radio and most of Radio National (RN), ABC Classic, Triple J and DAB+ services move to the new content division, programs RN Breakfast and Drive and Background Briefing will move to the News division.
Between now and July, ABC will be assessing cost implications across the organisation. The current proposed plans replace the old ABC Five Year Plan released in 2020, where ABC Life and Comedy were axed.
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Darcy Song was a reporter at Mumbrella, covering media owners, adtech and social platforms. She left in October 2023.
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