ABC journos and management earn a dime or even two
As ABC journalist Sally Sara tweeted this morning there is only one story that all of the ABC and (truth be told) most Australian journalists will be talking about today…
And that is The Australian’s report on the salaries of the ABC senior management and the public broadcaster’s on-air talent.
Dr Mumbo notes that the documents reveal that ABC managing director Mark Scott earns more than $678,000 dollars that might be a lot but its also worth noting that it is less than a quarter of what his Seven counterpart Tim Worner’s $2.6m salary let alone David Gyngell who with the looming IPO is set to pocket a package of around $10m a year.
For the record, Dr Mumbo enjoyed picking through the salary’s of the top on-air talent. He is sure next year’s ABC salary negotiations will be interesting now that everyone at the ABC knows about Tony Jones’s $350,000 salary (congrats btw Tony on topping the list).
But now that all the ABC’s top salaries are public Dr Mumbo wonders if there if there won’t a few ABC on-air talent wondering whether they wouldn’t be more valued (and better remunerated) at their commercial rivals.
I’d say they are only moderately remunerated, particularly compared to their commercial counterparts. I suspect the Oz is up to its old tricks of promoting envy against those it hates. It would be most interesting to see the salaries of the top News group people. Of course, they would claim that they are not paid by the public, when in fact, they are – just by a less direct route.
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I gotta say. . . with audiences fragmenting, and ratings dropping in traditional media, how are these commercial network guys still earning these sorts of pay packets, when they are cutting production and talent all over the shop? I know these senior roles have influence and responsibility, but wouldn’t it be great if a greater proportion of the income of these guys was performance based? Attract the audience, create great content and get the pay to match?
Just a thought. Like money, sex and politics, discussions around salary are never friendly ones. The old green monster will be out an about at the ABC offices today.
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Don’t get me wrong, she’s excellent, but Juanita Phillips gets $316,454pa for reading the news five nights a week. That’s a nice little earner for 10 minutes on camera Monday-Friday.
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And so the character assassination of the ABC begins.
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thanks
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@ Stefan. Is it a character assassination? 1) It’s your TAX dollars paying this lot so, yes, they should be accountable and transparent. 2) It’s not unusual – particularly for public companies – to list the salaries of senior employees. IE… the banks do it all the time. That’s not a character assassination by any means. Mark Scott’s salary is regularly broadcast, as is Tony Abbott’s, Bill Shorten’s, the head of the NSW police etc, etc…
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Revenge by the conservatives for releasing the Snowden\Indonesia spying reports???
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This absolutely infuriates me. As a grad some years ago, all we heard were dwindling resources = no journo positions.
A lot of us took up 2-3 part time jobs to stay afloat while interning. There are so few jobs in the industry, and -last I applied- the ABC took FOUR cadets each year. Rather than putting taxpayer money towards training new blood to inject life into all facets of the network, they GROSSLY OVERPAY presenters. It’s excessive and disgusting.
Even after obtaining a journo position, having interned -unpaid- for two years, it was $35k and I could barely make ends meet. Some old classmates still struggle, waiting tables in regional areas while they intern in WoopWoop.
Meanwhile, Jon Faine gets on the mic for a couple of hours each morning and earns over $280k.
Is it a wonder that so many of us have switched to corporate Comms and the quality of news journalism continues to fall…
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@Not bitter Leigh Sales – Public companies only have to disclose the payment of the Board of Directors and the 5 highest paid executive officers. Which means in most companies 99.9% of the staff manage to keep some privacy around their remuneration.
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Someone taking their cue from the UK’s BBC salary lists?
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Where is all this presumption about commercial television staff earning huge dollars coming from? There are a few hugely paid stars and execs, but the lifeblood staff of commercial television are mostly on pretty average money so it can all go to those stars and execs and keep shareholders happy. They could only dream about the money being bandied around at the ABC. And I speak as a senior staffer who’s worked in commercial tv for 20+ years.
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@ Shamma…. I think you’d find most senior salaries at state-owned companies would be readily available.
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Poor old Journo Grad. You clearly didn’t learn much about broadcasting if you think that the only time that a presenter is ‘working’ is when the ‘On Air’ light is on. No wonder you didn’t get a gig.
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Dear Mr Mark Scott, I do humbly apologise for the oversight and sincerely hope this won’t impede my chances when applying for a job with you in future.
Ever heard of being facetious to highlight a point?
$280k is excessive for what Faine does, when at the other end of the bell curve people with a passion for journalism can’t even enter the industry.
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@Previous Journo Grad, based on your whiny posts here, maybe the reason you “can’t even get into the industry” isn’t the ABC’s fault.
As for all the “that’s our money” rubbish, if Tony Jone’s salary were to halve, what impact do you think it would have on the “economies”??
If they are spending their allocated budget, what’s the harm? That’s how shit works…
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Plural of salary is salaries.
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