★★★★★ 0/5

250 jobs to go as ABC unveils 5 year plan

Jobs to go, ABC Comedy rebrand, less Factual & Entertainment for ABC.

45
Leave a comment

  • 250 jobs expected to go
  • Less Factual and Entertainment, prioritising Drama & Children’s TV
  • Independent production cut by $5m per year
  • ABC Comedy to be rebranded with Arts, Science, Education and Religion
  • More content made outside Ultimo headquarters by 2025

The ABC will axe up to 250 jobs and end programs as it deals with a budget shortfall of $84 million.

Managing director David Anderson said 75 % of ABC content-makers would be based outside the organisation’s Sydney headquarters by 2025.

Funding would be reallocated to ensure the ABC was more relevant to more Australians and better reflect the diversity within the community.

Anderson said redundancies and savings would affect every division across the ABC, including changes to executive staffing, but did not offer any details.

Managing Director David Anderson today told staff, “Today I have announced the details of the ABC’s Five-Year Plan 2020–2025, our strategy to guide us as we accelerate the ABC’s transformation from a traditional broadcaster to the nation’s most trusted and valued digital content provider. This strategy is the next step in our 88-year history and will ensure the ABC is more accessible to all Australians.

“In the next five years, the ABC must be more relevant to more Australians. We will be the home of local conversations and creativity in our cities and towns, our streets and suburbs. At a time of increasing international content and a challenging media environment, we will work harder to share the voices of Australians. We will tell compelling Australian stories. We will reflect the nation’s interests, concerns and culture through high-quality public interest journalism and engaging conversations.

“In the next five years, the ABC will focus more on digital innovation, delivering the on-demand and personalised services that Australians expect in their information and entertainment. Our television and radio services remain essential. But, increasingly, Australians want to watch, read and listen to the ABC when and where it suits them.

“Today, we have also announced proposals to meet our savings requirements as a result of the Federal Government’s indexation pause. Announced in 2018, this will reduce our budget by $84 million over three years and result in an ongoing reduction of $41 million per annum from 2022. This is on top of $64 million of ongoing budget cuts that were imposed on us in 2014.

“In real terms this means our operational funding will be more than 10% lower in 2021–22 than it was in 2013.

“It is true that many traditional media businesses are facing revenue challenges at present.

“In common with those commercial businesses, the ABC also needs to evolve its on-demand digital services to stay relevant to audience needs. In a reduced funding environment, we will always look for efficiency; however, it will also come at the cost of reducing investment in broadcast.

“Unlike commercial providers, though, the ABC exists only to serve the public good. It is a public media service, with its independence enshrined in legislation, and a Charter to serve the interests of the Australian people.

“While digital disruption would have brought change to the ABC in any event, there is no doubt that the cumulative effect of funding cuts is an extraordinary strain on our ability to meet community expectations.

“I have been up-front in saying that we can no longer absorb these budget reductions without the loss of some jobs and services.”

 

The proposed savings initiatives include:

 Giving ABC Life a new editorial direction and name, ABC Local, sourcing content from across the ABC, including outer suburban and regional areas.

 Rebranding ABC Comedy to create a home for a range of genres, such as Arts, Science, Education and Religion. Comedy will continue to be commissioned for ABC main channel and a destination on iview.

 Reducing independent production by approximately $5m p.a., predominately from the factual and entertainment slate, with the ABC prioritising investment in Drama and Children’s programming.

The proposed initiatives are in addition to reduced numbers in management and support teams and identified savings greater than 2% through current vacancies, redundancies and reducing operating costs.

The ABC has also reduced travel budgets by 25%, with a greater reliance on technology to connect the workforce.

A review of the ABC’s property portfolio will consider options to either improve our accommodation, lease vacant space or relocate if it is more beneficial.  Assessing spare capacity for leasing in ABC Ultimo could potentially create a $4 million p.a. saving. A portion of this could be reinvested in services.

Increased investment in regional centres reflects another important commitment in the Five-Year Plan and will see 75% of content-makers working outside the Ultimo headquarters by 2025, ensuring greater engagement with local communities.

Pillars
Reflect contemporary Australia
Exploring and revealing Australia’s diversity in our workforce and the stories we tell.
Build a lifelong relationship with Australians
Ensuring we produce content and deliver services relevant to Australians of all ages and backgrounds.
Continue to earn the trust that audiences place in the ABC, safeguarding ABC independence and integrity
Remaining a constant and reliable source of Australian news and entertainment.
Provide entertaining, culturally significant, and on-demand content
Focusing on telling entertaining, innovative, and distinctively Australian stories for on-demand and broadcast audiences.
Make sustainable choices in allocating resources
Allocating funding to achieve the greatest impact and benefit for the Australian public.

Priorities
Deliver personalised digital experiences – provide services on relevant digital platforms that are free, reliable and easy to use and that promote personalisation.
Remain Australia’s best and most trusted source of news and information –
uphold the highest editorial values and provide the best public interest journalism, coverage and information to strengthen our democracy.
Strengthen local connections – listen to audiences in all communities and provide the content they ask for.
Prioritise quality over quantity – utilise resources and commissioning power to deliver the highest quality content.
Invest in the workforce of the future – develop creative, diverse, well-trained and innovative employees and teams to serve our audiences.
Be creative, flexible, efficient, and accountable – deliver against our Charter, while always working efficiently to identify savings and reinvestment opportunities.

Screen Producers Australia CEO Matthew Deaner statement:

“This announcement simply compounds the injury to an industry already weakened by COVID-19-related shutdowns, the lack of a comprehensive support package for the sector, reductions in output and funding from commercial broadcasters and a lack of ongoing baseline support from SVODs and other online content providers in the absence of evolved content regulation.

“I am heartened to hear that drama and children’s content will be largely protected from this latest round of cuts, ensuring quality Australian stories such as The Heights and Bluey will continue to make their way into the homes and hearts of Australian families.

“However, the damage that these cuts will deal to factual and entertainment programming will begin to show immediately, not just for the small businesses which make up the Australian independent production sector, but also for the audiences who sit down to watch these programs each night.

“Not only do shows such as Gruen, Employable Me Australia, The Weekly with Charlie Pickering and Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds hold important cultural value for our nation, they also possess significant export potential and support thousands of jobs.

“SPA continues to call on the Government to provide targeted relief for the screen production industry, which is critical for our economic and cultural recovery, calling for a content fund to facilitate a return to work, including assistance with insurance gaps which now arise for the production industry.

“We have seen Governments overseas provide much needed relief to their production sectors, including in Canada and France. Without some form of assistance, production activity will stall, despite the best efforts and innovation of production businesses.”

Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance:

“The Coalition Government’s war against the ABC since it was elected in 2013 amounts to nothing less than vandalism of one of Australia’s most trusted and valued public institutions,” said MEAA Chief Executive Paul Murphy.

“These vindictive cuts have been ideologically motivated to undermine the ABC’s independence and its news gathering ability. In real terms, the ABC’s funding from government is now 30% below what it was in the mid-1980s. The result is that ABC staff are doing more with less.

“Over the past six months, the ABC has again demonstrated its value as an essential service providing comprehensive and vital news and information from across the breadth of Australia and around the world about bushfires and the coronavirus pandemic.

“The Reuters Institute Digital News Report released this week found that the ABC was Australia’s most trusted news brand with a 72% trust rating.

“Yet, once again, ABC staff will be asked to continue producing high quality and trusted journalism with ever-diminishing resources.

“As more and more journalists are forced out the door, those left behind face increasing workloads, leading to concerns about quality, burnout and the wellbeing of news and current affairs staff.”

MEAA Media Federal President Marcus Strom said, “These cuts have a real human cost with 250 people facing unemployment in the middle of a recession and a constrained job market for media professionals.

“Our members were prepared to give management some leeway given the impossible position they were put into by this ideologically obsessed government, but that has to work both ways.

“Members feel betrayed that ABC human resources and management seem intent to return to the shoulder tapping and ‘Hunger Games’-style pooled redundancies of the past. The union has in good faith negotiated a voluntary process, yet today HR is already calling people into meetings, which is causing much distress.

“We will be insisting that management adheres to the voluntary redundancy provisions contained in the staff enterprise agreement.”

Source: ABC

45 Responses

  1. personally i’ve really enjoyed ABC comedy, its good to know theres some light entertainment on that channel every night without ads & i’ve caught up on shows i never got around to watching, However i can see that its not necessarily been the best use of the $ when they could put other content on there too, not just comedy.
    Kids stuff should stay during the day though or even gets its own separate channel, surely an invaluable tool for any parent of youngins, especially during a pandemic lol.

  2. ABC Drama etc should be made/produced by the BBC who have an amazing record of world wide sales which supplements their budget. A co production model may get us drama which is watch able Plus drama from Canada , Ireland & Europe is watched world wide . So why do we just produce drama for just local viewing.

  3. This is very sad news for the ABC and it’s many loyal viewers. Sure, ditch the underperforming shows, but it’s a shame that good quality factual shows and drama will be effected. This is the last thing the Arts and Media sector needs at the moment ☹️😥

        1. not really accurate to say, anyone who visits this country pays australian tax. It’s yours in the same way that highways and kirribilli house are yours

  6. I think further seasons of The Heights and a possible S5 of Rosehaven could be in trouble, both would be fairly expensive to make, I thinik at least one of them won’t be back in 2021.

    1. I’m hoping The Heights does well in the UK and they want more. Worked for Please Like Me with the USA so fingers crossed it does again.

  7. Is there a reason why they can’t merge ABC iView & SBS On Demand onto the one platform? The amount of money that can be saved on technology/developers/UX staff could be put back into programming.

    1. Please, no. SBS On Demand forces you to create an account to watch anything so they can collect all your details. ABC iView currently does not require this, and I hope it stays that way.

        1. I’m not sure it could work as the SBS has evolved as an organisation in recent years while the ABC is still locked into its own ethos as a government run public service. The SBS has demonstrated what the ABC could have diversified into with a bit more research regarding the SVOD consumer market. Mind you, the ABC would have attracted more media critics especially from commercial FTA linear channels.

    2. Would that mean SBS drop their advertising revenue? How much content does SBS actually produce in relation to the ABC? Merger unlikely, in my opinion.

  8. Reading between the lines the ABC needs to reexamine its brand relevance to the community as a tax payer funded organisation, most of what it does is just a public service run like any government department, or that is how it seems to most of its armchair critics.
    Maneuvering the ABC away from being a generic part of a typical government style bureaucracy will be difficult, the unions wont be able to do much to stop it either, I suspect.

  9. ABC Comedy was always a mistake, I said it at the time. ABC 2 had a healthy range of content with lots of documentaries, dramas you wouldn’t find on the main channel, re-runs from the main channel, archival stuff ect. It was everything the secondary channel should be, but ABC Comedy instantly made me never look at it again. Old comedies played on an endless loop, there’s only so many times you can watch the same episode of The IT Crowd. It was a waste.

    Here’s hoping whatever they come up with next will be back to a healthy mix and while I suspect it won’t be the case with the budget cuts and all, but it would be nice if part of this transition to whatever is next would bring along them following in SBS’s footsteps to convert the channel into HD MPEG-4.

    1. I wouldn’t see any reason for ABC Kids to move from 22, it seem suited there.
      If they tried to swap it up to 23 then that would pretty much kill ABC ME as a channel as they can’t be merged together. Primary School kids aren’t going to be watching pre-school programs and I don’t think ABC Kids is going to be pulled back from its 7:30 end-time, but if ABC ME can’t hit the after-school block then what is the point of it.

      Then again… ABC ME’s days could always be numbered in a way as their demographic is all either streaming or playing games than watching live TV.

      1. It’d be fine up until 3:30pm(ish) while Primary School Children are at school, however from then on they’d lose out if they swapped to ME then. All those shows that hit the secondary channel ratings in the evening would not be there and if you look at today’s ones 11 out of the top 20 are those with EV or PM next to the name. However as you say if ME isn’t hitting any good ratings in that block then perhaps the swap would work as it is kind of pointless having it, perhaps at 7:30pm that could change to a “Young Adults Channel,” again though for what as it’d only be for 3 hours or so as it stops around 11pm now.

          1. Yeah basically and have something for all generations as I said once before, you get them early with Kids associating ABC as TV, then on to ME, TWO and then ABC. They have the advantage of no ads so are a tad closer to being able to compete with streamers, advertising brand wise it’s: As you grow *the ABC grows with you, symbol drawn and Forever below it.

            *Or we grow with you.

  11. Great to hear that ABC Comedy is going. The programs on that station cost the ABC (and the taxpayer) heaps of money in defamation payouts in addition to production costs and salaries, and it is hoped that more serious and worthwhile programming will take its place.

  12. ABC Comedy was never going to last, I saw that coming when it was announced. There was nothing wrong with ABC2 which is why they seem to be going back to that format. Since ABC Comedy replaced ABC2 I don’t recall every watching the channel.

    1. Yeah and they kind of cut out of ABC2 at just the wrong time, back then shows like Breaking Bad were on so they could have picked up half the shows that SBS did. Like Vikings, The Handmaid’s Tale, Fargo, From Dusk Til Dawn, even been the FTA place for Better Call Saul, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and all those types of shows, things like The Good Place and Schitt’s Creek could have still run as well. Hopefully they’ll also bring the 8:30pm Sunday Night Documentaries it’s one of the ones I miss the most.

  14. There is not an $84 million shortfall – that figure is based on inflation estimates in the budget that are much higher than the actual rate and the current forecasts.

    Budget papers show an increase in ABC funding every year from 12/13 up to the 19/20 budget.

    1. Sorry @JRS I don’t think that’s true… according to The Guardian funding has decreased every year since 2014 with further decreases expected until 2022.

      1. … sorry nrc_02 … you should be careful what you believe in the papers!!! … according to the ABC’s own figures it received $1.077 billion from the ALP government for 2013-14 and from the department’s figures for 2019-20 it received $1.062 billion from the current LNP government … a reduction of $15 million or 1.3% … as the funding has been “paused”, not cut, the current triennial funding package is $3.16 billion … the $783 million claimed by the Guardian is something of a smoke and mirrors trick that doesn’t really do the funding arrangement justice …

        1. You aren’t including inflation in your numbers. Gov departments function where an annual rise due to inflation is considering as funding staying the same. If it doesn’t rise to match inflation, that’s a cut.

        2. A ‘pause’ means non-indexation basically, so funding in real terms IS effectively a cut, put simply, as if it’s not at least keeping up with CPI/inflation (1.5%, 2%, whatever it is/was) then it’s falling behind the standard, agreed cost of living (or in this case, the cost of doing business).
          So let’s get real, while it’s strictly accurate to say a ‘pause’ is not actually a ‘cut’, in real-world terms – when pretty much everyone and every business expects things to edge up a little every year (and quite reasonably in most cases) – then in effect, if you’re pausing you’re actually starting to go backwards. That’s reality.
          And of course under the Tony Abbott era (how can we ever forget “no cuts to the ABC or SBS”, just days before a federal election; turned out to be lies) – both public broadcasters most definitely saw very significant cuts in funding.

        3. CJ. That 1.077 billion figure includes two equity injections ($3.3 million & $17.1 million) plus a loan of $20 million. Their funding for 13/14 was $1.053 billion.

          1. OK skillz, Graham & JRS … I think we’re getting into rarefied semantics here!!! I’m a simple person and if I’m still being paid the same this year as I was last year then I didn’t get a raise … but it isn’t a pay cut … and if we go backwards into a recession as everyone is predicting, does that mean the ABC should get less next year? … let’s stick to basic numbers as reported by the relevant authorities (including the ABC itself) and we’re all on the same page, yes?

          2. CJ – best to use the figures in the budget as I did.

            Not only are there no actual funding cuts, as you correctly point out, the ABC isn’t subject to the efficiency dividend that applies to other departments and agencies such as Services Australia.

Leave a Reply