Public broadcasters warn against cuts
The bosses of ABC and SBS both told a Senate committee that govt cuts would impact on services.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under News
The bosses of ABC and SBS have both told a Senate committee that cuts to the national broadcasters would impact on services.
The Senate estimates hearing is examining the costs of day-to-day operations to increase efficiency and reduce expenses.
ABC managing director Mark Scott told the hearing that if the ABC’s funding shrinks, then all of the broadcaster’s services will be examined for savings.
“Nothing would be spared from that kind of review, and I can give no guarantee on any services, that any services could be spared, including rural services, if our funding was cut,” he said.
“But I’m not expecting that because of the clear commitment that was given to maintain the ABC’s funding.
“If our funding were somehow cut, we would need to look at all our services, radio television, online, in the cities and in the bush.”
SBS managing director Michael Ebeid told the Senate estimates hearing that some foreign-language services may have to be scrapped and a merger with the ABC would not save any money.
“The fact that we are a very efficient organisation and we have been running efficiently for a long time – we’ve outsourced a lot of our key functions to other external providers who can do things very cheaply – I think there would be very little economic benefit,” he said.
Source: Yahoo
7 Responses
Bollocks Pertinax…
@Ted – you have it right.
The reality has been that when ABC funding is cut the first services to go are adult and children’s drama and comedy and documentary which was why the Labor government gave these areas a big increase in funding over 5 years ago. All the news related TV programs survive a lot better. And radio which is the unsung hero and jewel of the ABC also seems to suffer more.
Mr Scott should do a ruthless analysis of the top heavy middle managers across the ABC and get rid of them before the axe is put to programs. No CEO has really managed to get on top of this.
And SBS is an efficient organisation but it is vulnerable because it is a state/commercial hybrid which nobody really seems to be able to define. But the political fallout with government meddling could be unpredictable if ethnic communities get behind it.
There are two inquiries that the ABC and SBS agreed to and are participating in. Why not wait till the are written first.
But no the ALP/Green senate and ABC are trying to preempt the findings of them by threatening to cut services even if cost savings are found to scare voters.
Public broadcasters are never going to say ‘ yeah we waste lots of cash, please make some cuts’ are they?
I am not entirely convinced of the longterm usefulness of SBS, I think a lot of the foreign language stuff they broadcast (news mainly)should be easy enough to access online and only gets miniscule ratings, which makes it a bit pointless. However I really enjoy their soccer coverage and the occasional foreign language tv series. If there was a merger there would be huge savings in executive salaries.
As for the ABC…..leave well alone as they are a beacon of quality in a sea of mediocre drivel.
I am conflicted by this. I worked for the national broadcaster for 2 decades and during some severe budget cuts. It is never good form for either ABC or SBS to threaten to slash its core services and thereby breach their charter in so doing. There are other ways to respond. I know.
It does amaze me, how the Liberal Party hate the ABC, and can be quite condescending of it and it’s audience.Why can they not accept, Labour is more for humanities, and the LIberals are more for finance and business, which leads to more intense questioning when people are affected by their decisions. Eg. Manus Island, education policy, their distaste for thr Carbon Tax, etc etc.
News Corp gets an almost $900 million tax break, reeks of self serving, biased reporting yet the only truly independent news sources are under attack.
Don’t believe Bolt, the ABC has less funding than all the commercial stations, yet has to provide nearly 30% more content over more platforms (No Ads means more content). As for the “too much coverage”” rubbish, ABC does not have nearly 2% of Rupert’s coverage.
ABC gets in trouble for “getting wording of early reports” wrong, not getting the story wrong, just a wording error, yet the immigration minister got it wildly wrong and is yet to admit anything.