Latest $84 million cuts rip the heart out of the ABC, and our democracy
Alexandra Wake and Michael Ward examine the cuts the ABC has faced over the past seven years in this crossposting from The Conversation, and explain why the latest round of cuts, in response to a budget shortfall of $84m, is such a blow.
At the height of the coronavirus emergency, and on the back of devastating bushfires, Australia’s much awarded and trusted national broadcaster has again been forced to make major cuts to staff, services and programs. It is doing so to offset the latest $84 million budget shortfall as a result of successive cuts from the Coalition government.
In the latest cuts, wrapped up as part of the national broadcaster’s five-year plan,
- 250 staff will lose their jobs
- the major 7:45am news bulletin on local radio has been axed
- ABC Life has lost staff but somehow expanded to become ABC Local
- independent screen production has been cut by $5 million
- ABC News Channel programming is still being reviewed.
Even the travel budget, which allows journalists and storytellers to get to places not accessible by others, has been cut by 25%.
These are just the latest in a long list of axed services, and come off the back of the federal government’s indexation freeze.
Announced in 2018, that freeze reduced the ABC budget by $84 million over three years and resulted in an ongoing reduction of $41 million per annum from 2022.
The indexation freeze is part of ongoing reductions to ABC funding that total $783 million since 2014. In an email to staff, Managing Director David Anderson said the cut to the ABC in real terms means operational funding will be more than 10% lower in 2021–22 than it was in 2013.
To be fair, the way in which the ABC executive has chosen to execute the latest cuts does make some sense, pivoting more towards digital and on-demand services. Right now, the commuting audience that has long listened to the 7:45am bulletin is clearly changing habits. However, with widespread closures of newspapers across the nation, the need for independent and trusted news in depth, that is not online has never been more important.
ABC Life is a particular loss. It has built an extremely diverse reporting team, reaching new audiences, and winning over many ABC supporters and others who were initially sceptical. The work they produced certainly wasn’t the type commercial operators would create.
Clearly the coronavirus pandemic has slashed Australia’s commercial media advertising revenues. But the problems in the media are a result of years of globalisation, platform convergence and audience fragmentation. In such a situation, Australia’s public broadcasters should be part of the solution for ensuring a diverse, vibrant media sector. Instead, it continues to be subject to ongoing budget cuts.
Moreover, at a time when the public really cannot afford to be getting their news from Facebook or other social media outlets, cutting 250 people who contribute to some of Australia’s most reliable and quality journalism and storytelling – and literally saving lives during the bushfires – appear to be hopelessly shortsighted.
The latest Digital News Report 2020 clearly showed the ABC is the media outlet Australians trust the most.
These latest cuts join a long list of axed services in the past seven years. They include
- public interest journalism (Lateline and state-based 7.30) axed
- The World Today and ABC PM radio current affairs programming halved
- the closure or reduction of international news bureaus
- cuts since 2014 to Radio National (for example, Sunday Nights)
- cuts to international broadcasting/media services such as the Australia Network, which was cancelled in 2013
- the end of short wave radio services to the Northern Territory
- a reduction in live concerts on Classic FM
- a contraction of Australian drama
- cut costs for Australian children’s programming
- reductions in women’s and local sport
- an end to the coverage of international events such as the Olympics cancelled
- an end to non-news and current affairs television outside of Sydney and Melbourne
- the closure of ABC Open
- 100 websites shut down.
While not everyone will miss every program or service that has gone, and even with its occasional missteps, there is no doubt the ABC is the envy of the liberal democracies that do not have publicly funded assets, particularly the United States.
Has the ABC’s budget been increased?
Communications Minister Paul Fletcher has continued to suggest the funding cuts are not real, are sustainable without service reductions for Australians, and has claimed the ABC has received “increased funding”.
The minister’s comments are not consistent with data we published last year based on the government’s own annual budget statements and the reality of the ongoing situation for the ABC.
The government argues base or departmental funding is higher in 2020-21 than it was in 2013-14. The relevant budget papers do show that in 2013-14, the ABC was allocated $865 million for “general operational activities”. The most recent budget statement shows this has increased to $878 million in 2020-21.
So how can it be the ABC budget shows this increase when we have been arguing they are facing an overall cut?
First, we noted last year the complexity of the budget process, which means, for example, the reinstatement of short-term funding can be counted as extra funds, or the ending of such funds, while reducing an agency budget, will not appear as a reduction in allocation.
Second, the 2020-21 ABC budget reflects the inclusion of indexation for increases in CPI-related costs between 2013-14 and 2018-19. This is the funding that is being halted until at least 2021-22.
So despite statements to the contrary, nothing can change the fact the ABC has suffered massive cuts in recent years. The data published last year showed the reality of the ongoing situation for the ABC, with an annual cost to its budget in 2020-21 of $116 million. As the table below shows, taking into account actual budget allocations and adding the items cut, frozen or otherwise reduced, the ABC should have funding of approximately $1.181 billion in 2020-21, not the $1.065 billion it will receive.
It is against this background the latest funding freeze, due to a failure to meet the impact of inflation costs, occurs. While it doesn’t sound like a lot, the three year impact is $84 million, and has resulted in the cuts announced today.
But more importantly, these ongoing cuts represent an attack by the federal government on the broadcaster, its role in democracy, and in keeping Australians safe, informed and entertained.
Alexandra Wake, Program Manager, Journalism, RMIT University and Michael Ward, PhD candidate, University of Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Whist I generally appreciate and respect ABC, in recent years it has deteriorated into a far left wing propaganda mouthpiece and not necessarily representative of the views/make up of the tax payers that fund the organisation. The ABC is expected not to take editorial stances on political issues, and is required to present a range of views with impartiality although I don’t feel they are delivering on this at all. Tax funds would be better spent elsewhere.
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Unfortunatelt I 100% agree. Before I get called right-wing, I’ve voted labor inthe last two federal elections.
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The indexation is virtually a guarantee on revenue increases YOY when compared to a commercial outlet.
Not only is unfair for most publishers who have had to manage declining revenues, as well as yield, for the past decade or so, it leaves the ABC complacent and lack the drive for innovation. Very much like you would see in many of our government orgs.
As a taxpayer funded entity, they have a mandate to run a lean and efficient operation, and not a bloated one that has no incentives to innovate, drive cost efficiencies as such off the back of guaranteed increases in funding by the taxpayer every year.
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Could not agree more re the extreme bias to the left. The last election result should clearly indicate that the majority view is not left so the ABC is not balanced in how it reports on the political landscape. We see bias in other networks, however, the tax payer funded ABC should always rise above this and objectively show both the left and right viewpoints, along with the moderates – so that Australians can make informed decisions. Until the ABC builds into its principles a clear adherence to being objective and not serving the left, it will continue to suffer the consequences.
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I don’t agree that the ABC have become as lefty mouthpiece. If so, they always have been. Here’s Tony Abbott sponsor and right wing, anti-communist crusading fruit loop B.A. Santamaria sprouting the same old anti ABC angle on evening news in the 70’s. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBHFGVfas7g
What needs to be understood is that the Coalition (who want to abolish any scrutiny and criticism of their government) have been working in concert with Newscorp/Sky (who of course want the audience for commercial purposes) to relentlessly paint the ABC as ‘lefty’ and ‘partisan’, whenever the views they espouse do not align with the Govt line or right wing corporate agenda. It is all about trying to destroy their asset of trust – the same way Trump does with his relentless ‘Fake News’ attacks. Despite this, survey after survey rightly finds the Australian public still find the ABC to be the the most trusted news source. That won’t do will it? So attack, attack, cut, cut, cut. Whatever your political persuasion, there can be no doubt the coalition are dedicated to undermining, dismantling and destroying the ABC for political purposes, and it will come at a very real cost to our democracy. Newscorp papers and Sky have increasinly become, like their Fox News cousin, primarily a political propaganda units that also reports some news. Fairfax has been eaten by Nine, who’s chairman is Peter Costello and CEO has strong links to the LNP….so there is not a lot of diversity left in the Australian news landscape. Democracy requires journalists who will hold all sides of politics to account.
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… the truth is the ABC has had a “budget problem” since 2010 when the MD chose to launch an un-budgeted, unfunded 24-hour news channel and took tens (now snowballed into hundreds) of millions of dollars from every other ABC department to set it up and pay for it for the last decade … Tony Abbott bumbling in and making some cuts was a godsend because they could be blamed for the problem instead …
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How many independent – yes independent – looks / investigations, call them what you will – of / at the ABC that find there is no perceived bias does there have to be before this sort of nonsense is finally put to bed?
And the sort of person who syas these things are usually not the type that lives in the “regions” as it is quaintly called these days and relies on the ABC for goodly part of their information, news and entertainment.
(The other thing that often baffles me here is why people happy to leave all sorts of opinions but must hide behind a non-de-plume).
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I am a centre-right, Liberal voter and, therefore, generally suspicious of the ABC’s often softish-left approach to news and current affairs. Having said that, if it’s a choice between the ABC and the China / Russia manipulated ‘news’ that circulates on social media, I’d be strongly in favour of increasing the ABC’s funding. Our democracy would thank us for it.
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Care to give an example or does this just come from reading The Australian?
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Cry me a river ! The ABC has been a service to the Nation but their cries over a budget cut is falling on deaf ears whilst the private sector ( especially in media ) is dealing with an unprecedented financial crisis that is threatening the very existence of many , many companies and livelihoods. Is this happening to the same extent in the ABC ? I doubt it . The revenue reductions these organisations have had and will continue to endure is many times greater than the funding cuts to the ABC .
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Media businesses in Australia – be they print, radio, TV, advertising and even certain sections of online – are taking massive hits at the moment and won’t be getting better any time soon. Why should the ABC be any different? The Aunty hand-wringers who love holding those hands out for “more please” are being a bit too precious – but that’s not unusual. Get real. The economy here and just about everywhere else for that matter, is down the toilet and will be staying there for the next couple of years, not months. At least until this virus scourge is tamed, not ignored by buffoons like the supposed leaders of the U.S. and Brazil and certain bizoids here.
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Australia only has 25m people but has two public broadcasters – ABC and SBS. They double up in so many back office operations and technology e.g ABC iView and SBS ondemand. In the UK (pop 66m) they just have the BBC and iPlayer. Keep it simple…
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Let’s have an evidence-based discussion, because all this left/right labelling is a major fucking problem to the function of our democracy, seems to me, amplified by social media, to the point where we are paralysed by the concept of “fake news” (thanks Donald Trump)
While you might have views on the ABC’s bias it remains the most trusted media outlet (and in fact one of the few widely trusted media outlets). I challenge you to identify a more reliable alternative…?
Cutting funding to it has the effect of diminishing trust in government, I would suggest.
To quote recent Roy Morgan trust research:
“The high trust ratings for the ABC and SBS, which reflect their reputations for honesty, high quality service, independence and objective information, give these two media brands a head start in attracting large audiences.
See here:
https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/8374-media-risk-monitor-april-2020-202004150711
Note News Ltd, by comparison here:
http://www.roymorgan.com/findi.....2003160528
See p13 here for an academic piece:
https://research.qut.edu.au/best/wp-content/uploads/sites/244/2020/03/Trust-and-Mistrust-in-News-Media.pdf
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That’s odd ‘goodone’.
Because my take-out is that given the increasing global influence of right-wing nut-job zealots, reflected in the continued vindictive and parsimonious budget cuts on such mendacious grounds, that our Federal Government is slavishly following overseas trends.
They are hell-bent on avoiding accountability which is one of the greatest strengths of the ABC with its cogent investigative reporting of news and current affair. Thus continues the ABC’s slide to the right.
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Citation required – There’s not enough space on this forum.
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If you can’t run a billion dollar media organisation in a country of only 20+ million people your doing something seriously wrong.
It’s laughable! You only have to google ABC salaries and FOI to find out how much is blown on literally hundreds upon hundreds of staff on six figure salaries.
With people earning almost a third of a million dollars producing one hour of content a week. That’s either a thousands dollars a day, or actual work days $300 an hour. Ha!
Wikileaks is run on the bread and water budget by comparison and they’ve changed the world. The Guardian (in Australia) could be so lucky and it’s coverage is excellent.
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There has been an emergence of strong ideological antipathy towards the ABC including (de)funding, taking away constraints on the reach of some urban based commercial provider counterparts, while regional papers decline or close and much dog whistling e.g. dismissing the ABC as ‘left wing’ which can also target those of the centre right Liberal, members and/or voters.
Many in the regions including (many ageing) LNP voters trust and depend upon the ABC, as research shows, yet they often reflex too, that the ABC is ‘left wing’ (in the US that would translate as ‘liberal’) which can be a strange contradiction, and that something must be done to clip its wings….. so they are left with no real regional media…
A metaphor would be how various major sporting codes’ third tiers are in decline, i.e. regional, with clubs closing and regional support going to the urban clubs in higher tiers with advantage of wall to wall media coverage.
Just because we do not agree with some ABC content or views aired, even if they do seem silly, it doesn’t make it ‘left wing’ and we need a diversity of views to deal with a complex world, both regional and urban based.
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Asked for ONE example and unable to do so – speaks volumes about the quality of your critical analysis.
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Just to clarify that the UK does, in fact, have more than one public service broadcaster. The BBC which of course is completely tax funded and Channel 4 which – whilst is mostly self funded – is a publicly owned Trust, enabling it to provide content that commercially funded publishers wouldn’t support in a much similar way to ABC and SBS. To state that Australia has too many public service broadcasters for its relative size is disingenuous.
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We need a trusted independent news organisation that can’t be influenced by commercial or political interests now more than ever:
1) A large proportion of the population didn’t grow up with the internet and were never taught how to analyse reliable websites
2) In Australia, a large proportion of our media landscape is owned by a right-wing media organisation that are more concerned about selling advertising space and influencing elections than reporting truthful and quality journalism
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The ABC’s annual $1 billion budget and proceeds from the sale of their multiple assets – property, intellectual property, etc – could fund a lot of new schools, health centres and other needed infrastructure.
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Yawn.. Why not call it a market correction.
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