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ABC Sydney to relocate newsroom

Sydney 7pm bulletin will broadcast from Parramatta studio from September 30.

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ABC News Sydney will relocate from Ultimo to Parramatta on September 30 .

The 7pm bulletin will broadcast from a new studio, yet to be completed, on the promenade of the new building.

The building was opened in May with the official ceremony led by ABC Chair Kim Williams, ABC Managing Director David Anderson, and Member for Parramatta Dr Andrew Charlton.

The relocation to western Sydney is a part of ABC’s Five-Year Plan to see 75% of content makers working outside its Ultimo head office by 2025.

But not everybody is happy about the move.

The Age reports union representatives meeting management around plans to relocate ABC Sydney radio staff. All Sydney radio shows are expected to move to the new facility. There are also concerns in luring guests to the building 27km west of Sydney.

ABC is also seeking tenants to occupy levels 8 to 14 of its Ultimo building to help fund its occupancy in Parramatta.

Around half of the ABC’s 3825 ongoing staff are located in NSW.

12 Responses

  1. … “But not everybody is happy about the move”? … gee, what a surprise … just waiting for the union to demand a “Parramatta allowance” for staff to move there …

  2. The decision to relocate staff from the inner city, Ultimo to Parramatta is ridiculous on two grounds: First, the idea that the Parramatta area is more representative of ABC consumers does not make sense especially if reporting on news and current affairs.
    News and current affairs is supposed to be objective not on the opinions of the geographic location of its facilities. When it comes to program content, ABC programming is for all Australians not those in Western Sydney. The latter idea of program input from Parramatta people is a tiken gesture that the ABC will never and should not take over. The ABC is for all Australia.

    Secondly, the Parramatta facilities are leased not owned by the ABC. That requires regular payments to the lessor. The ABC has its own facilities at Ultimo which it wants to lease out. Dumb. Then the ABC complains about a shortage of funds. The ABC should revert to Ultimo when the Parramatta lease expires. The ABC is nuts!!!!!

  4. This doesn’t make financial sense, is a logistical hassle and the staff don’t want it. Where is the upside?

    I wonder if they have the humility to admit it wasn’t thought through and backtrack the decision.

  6. “concerns in luring guests to the building 27km west of Sydney.” – it’s radio. can’t they use a phone? city snobbery- how do stations in the country exist without phone interviews etc? Princesses

  7. What a waste of resources to appease a few loud-mouthed anti-ABC puppets. All of the big media companies are based in the inner city. Seven – Redfern, Ten – Pyrmont, NewsCorp – Surry Hills, Nine – North Sydney (inner city over a bridge). The only outlier is SBS.

    No one wants to travel 27km west for an interview, especially considering the bad traffic.

    1. There’s been reports in recent years that SBS may eventually move to South Western Sydney – I think Bankstown was one proposal.

      Anyway…given the amount of interviews for news bulletins done over Zoom along with other advances in technology, I’m personally not sure whether the location of a studio really matters as much as it used to.

      Indeed, with increased security concerns in recent years, industrial parks in suburbia (not that the ABC’s new facility in Parramatta is going to be one of those…) may well be seen as more desirable locations for media outlets in the future than the higher profile city locations.

      Whatever the case, it’ll be rather interesting to see whether or not ABC News NSW eventually receives a new set for the move to Parramatta. Although if they do, one must wonder why the new graphics/theme launch (which only happened a few weeks back) wasn’t held off until the move!

  8. Prime example of bean counters making decisions and not anyone whose ever worked at putting a program to air. Hope they keep the old current studio open for guests and interviewees to appear remotely who don’t have time to travel an hour out of Sydney.

    1. “Prime example of bean counters making decisions”
      IdiotBox, I don’t think the move makes financial sense at all. It seems to be driven by ideology (boy, there’s enough of that at the ABC!) rather than accountants’ advice.

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