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ABC denies Drama, Kids TV funds siphoned off to News

Director of Television denies a media report about claiming children’s and drama funds have been reallocated to other divisions.

abc hqThe stoush between ABC and News Corp continues.

The ABC has denied media reports that it has trimmed its Drama and Children’s Television budgets to bolster other departmental budgets.

The Australian claimed $6m had been “siphoned from the ABC’s children’s and drama television budgets to boost spending in news and pay for rising salaries.”

But ABC Director of Television, Richard Finlayson told Guardian Australia, “It is not true ABC TV has been asked to distribute some of its budget from children’s and drama programming to cover costs in other divisions, most notably news.

“Nor are the figures reported by The Australian reflective of the amount spent by the ABC on children’s content year on year.”

Finlayson confirmed there had been an efficiency-driven reduction in spending in ABC TV but it was less than the reported figure.

“The Australian also ignores the fact that allocations to genres can vary across individual years according to strategic priorities,” Finlayson said.

“ABC TV prioritises its budgets with a focus on Australian content, reducing overheads where possible to maximise efficiencies.”

6 Responses

  1. Kids Drama should be given first priority.It sucks at the moment the ABC doesn’t have anything really at the present time for the teen market that can give the home grown commercial TV soaps a good run for their money like they did in the eighties.

  2. I for one am very glad the ABC News and Current Affairs services and people exist. Very glad. Same with the BBC. As well as SBS. What a horrifying world it would be without them.

  3. @victor: I’d be surprised if the ABC didn’t provide all those cost breakdowns in their Annual Reports which are publicly available. The ABC website has an archive of Annual Reports dating back to the 1990s

  4. Well Mr Finlayson can provide us with the correct figures then. Any old ABC hand will tell you adult and kid’s drama and documentaries are always the first to be cut by ABC management when times get tough. Until the Labor government increased the budget in 2008 specifically for these categories adult drama was down to as little as 7 or 8 hours one year. In terms of efficiencies all drama is outsourced and one-off docos and series are also outsourced. This allows the ABC to not only save on staff salaries but access government subsidy for Screen Australia using indie production companies. There is no reason why the ABC can’t break down its spend right across its departments and publish them.

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