ABC News redundancies under latest restructure
Around 20 roles to be made redundant as ABC News restructures to meet a rise in digital audiences.
- Published by David Knox
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Around 20 jobs are expected to be made redundant from ABC News as part of a digital restructure of its eight capital city newsrooms.
ABC claims the changes are in response to audience demands. In the past two years the ABC News online / mobile audience grew by 12% to almost 5 million Australians a month. The smartphone audience jumped almost 30%.
ABC indicated new roles will mean no net reduction in editorial.
Director, News, Analysis & Investigations Gaven Morris, “As Australia’s major public broadcaster, the ABC is continuing to provide news on traditional platforms at the same time as developing our digital presence to be as accessible as possible for all Australians.
“While our newsrooms do great work, the current structures do not fully support our people to meet modern audience needs.
“Reshaping our newsrooms involves challenges. Overall, it is anticipated around 20 positions would become redundant, and we know this would be painful. Against this, new senior editorial roles would be introduced to add to the expertise and skills in the newsroom. At the end of this process we anticipate having the same number of editorial employees.”
Proposed changes include:
- Reshaping the editorial leadership and newsroom structure
- Creating some new editorial roles and changing others to better integrate digital and broadcast responsibilities
- Streamlining workflows to enable local newsrooms to be more responsive to news as it happens, with the Brisbane digital newsroom to become a centre of innovation
“Australians overwhelmingly trust ABC News for accurate and independent reporting that reflects their communities and brings their stories to the nation,” Morris said. “The ABC’s responsibility to provide this valued service increases as other media withdraw from local news.”
Consultation on the proposal begins with unions and employees today.
5 Responses
Mr Morris said he anticipates the newsrooms will end up with the same number of positions once the changes are fully implemented. (ABC.net.au)
Some 20 people will have new job titles and roles and maybe some will get a pay rise but will it be more managers and less workers?
I wonder if there will be any ABC left, as we know it…before the tenure of that person in charge is over and she is gone…
OzJay obviously doesn’t actually read the story. It says “At the end of this process we anticipate having the same number of editorial employees.” So it’s just shuffling deckchairs and the same bloated, inefficient ABC News will remain – still sucking valuable resources from the rest of the ABC that could have been used to produce drama or comedy to “inform and Entertain” like the Charter says.
I think OzJay is pointing out recent changes and losses. Today’s announcement is in regard to numbers since. Audiences notice the losses more than the semantics.
“No net reduction in editorial”. LOL.
They’ve just cut PM and The World Today in half. Are they really expecting us to believe this contraction in staffing is not directly related? At the time of the last cuts there were all kinds of assurances that the depth and breadth of news coverage would be maintained (with more special report between news bulletins, etc). But anyone who listens to ABC news daily can attest that this is nonsense, and that coverage has been slashed even more drastically than the cuts to PM and TWT would indicate. There is no longer time for the longer in-depth reports that those programs used to do, which is particularly missed on days when something important goes down. And all kinds of stories that would once have been covered in those programs are now never covered at all. And those “special reports”? It’s never more than the reporter who has…