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ABC Board directs Q&A to move to News division

Prime Minister's ban sees ABC Board move Q&A from Entertainment portfolio.

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The ABC Board has directed Q & A to move from its current Entertainment portfolio to its News and Current Affairs division.

The shift follows a recent fallout following the Zaky Mallah incident and government ministers refusing to appear on the show. Prime Minister Tony Abbott indicated he would lift the ban if ABC moved the show to its News division. But there had been some concerns the broadcaster was being coerced into a move that would reflect on its independence.

The Board received an update today on the independent review being undertaken by Shaun Brown and Ray Martin and was briefed separately by management on the editorial processes surrounding the program.

In a statement ABC said both the program and the wider ABC “would benefit by an orderly shift of Q & A into the ABC News Division. Q & A is a significant feature in Australia’s news and current affairs cycle.

“Such relocation should provide the program with greater operational and cultural alignment,” it said.

The timing of the move will be determined by management in light of accommodation, scheduling, staffing and other factors but will take effect no later than the 2016 broadcast year.

  • Tagged with Q&A

26 Responses

  1. I have been in the audience of Q and A. Prior to entering or getting tickets, there is no screening process and the questions taken off the floor are not checked. People can legitimately put their hand up, and ask any question, and it will go to air. The network doesnt monitor these things, because the panel show is meant to be a public forum. Therefore Zaky Mallah wouldnt have been shut down by the network or production because they wouldnt have known who the hell he was.

    I mean, you can be angry at a show for being supposedly too “left wing” but what help is it to you, if you dont let any of your ministers attend the panel for the rest of season? Of course its going to be biased if its all labor polies. Just sounds like he is scrambling for an excuse to shut down the program. Its petty, unprofessional and quite frankly one of the reasons he was voted the countries most…

    1. How long ago? I attended about a year ago and the questions were screened and rehearsed. You can even see this when TJ says “Our next question comes from…” which is essentially what he did to Zaky Mallah. That’s not to say they don’t included a question with a hand up.

      1. About a year and a half / 2 years ago. I just remember that before the show opened, they basically had people write up their questions and got their names. Then they would just locate them before the show opened with the mic so that the producers knew where they were. But at no point did I see anyone check the questions or what was written down, it seemed to be open to anyone.

  4. My feeling is that it will make them very conscious of numbers. Counting the number of questions favouring left and right; even more stringent make up of audience numbers and their voting preferences. How many minutes Tony Jones directs content to the labor and liberal pollies on the panel. Being live; some poor sap will have to probably sit with a timer the next day and report on all these things, to then account for it; so that the next ep is as balanced as it can be. Other than that; just lots of procedural inconvenience to the bean counters and executives as one pot of money gets transferred and all the production elements with it.

      1. Exactly John. Q&A isn’t news. it’s people **commenting** about news. These are not the same things. Unfortunately, the masses can no longer tell the difference which is why **commentators** like Bolt, Akermen et al are mistaken for reporters of facts (and given greater weight because of this misrepresentation), when all they do is express opinions.

    1. I agree…which is what the PM wants…cannot believe he can manipulate the national broadcaster like this….it worries me…
      The new division already has The Drum, that I do not watch….Q&A will just become another pollie platform, from what I can see… 🙁

    2. I disagree. The ABC/SBS is paid for by Australian tax payers and therefore it should remain neutral in content. This often is not the case with Q&A or many ABC current affair stories.

      You may not agree/disagree with the right-wing politics of News Corp or left-wing propaganda published by Union magazines — the difference is that you choose to fund either publication unlike the ABC/SBS.

      1. I can’t see how this will make any difference to anything. If anything, Q&A under news and current affairs is likely to be even more controversial than under entertainment. A pyrrhic victory for Abbott for sure.

      2. I believe everyone here wants a neutral ABC, the Right can’t have it both ways applauding the ABC for terrific Journalism when the ABC run negative stories against the Labor Party/ Left. Then when the ABC runs Negative stories against the LNP/Right then claim the ABC is bias.

        1. A big part of the problem is that “balanced” or “representative” is being mistaken for “neutral”. They’re most definitely not the same, or even equivalent, things.

          And, looking back over 30+ years of media & politics, I can’t help but think that has been a deliberate tactic…

    3. I agree … I don’t understand why News Corp papers cannot be put under the same scrutiny. Even though they are not public funded, surely they operate under some news licence that require balance/accuracy and not be just a mouth piece for the Right?

      1. What if the musical guest is overtly political (British singer Billy Bragg, who has been a guest on Q&A, springs to mind)?
        Would they then have to balance it out by having another musical guest, from the opposite end of the political spectrum, and who would they get? Thatcher-fan Geri Halliwell? Ted Nugent?

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