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Quarterly Newsletter:Winter 2001, Vol.3 No.2

Asset stripping at the ABC

Underfunding cuts to the heart of the national broadcaster

The ABC is one of our greatest cultural and democratic assets. But, at the rate of asset-stripping at the national broadcaster, for how much longer can we expect it to survive?

Money and resources have been stripped from program-making in both television and radio. Researchers and infrastructure have been removed and it is said program makers are now despairing about declining quality. There has been a 10% staff cut in television in NSW, the major production centre. Almost half of the producers working outside news and current affairs have been sacked. TV has moved out of documentary and feature making, with the exception of the Natural History Unit which survives for now, and Australian Story. The energy is gone and morale is at rock bottom.

The ABC inventory of programs has dwindled. This has contributed to the ABC reducing the lead time for making programs - ie the time between commissioning and the programs going to air - simply to fill the air time. There has been a move to studio based productions as these tend to be cheaper and have a shorter turn around time - all programs have to be made within two months and have a lower research component. The scenery workshops are being closed as ABC management have said there is nothing on the production schedule for them to do.

The latest blow is the cuts to library and archives. The planned cuts will make even less of the archives accessible. While new technologies have helped, and can help more in the future, they are not a magic solution; information does not catalogue itself, and if it is not properly catalogued, by trained people who know what they are doing, then it is difficult to retrieve.

We believe the only training available at the ABC now is in performance management, ironically, and financial management; there is little or no technical training. As the ABC has been the only trainer in television the effect of this will go right through the television industry.

Younger people are leaving, demoralised by the lack of opportunity. Some cross-media trainees were taken on four years ago; out of 700 applicants seven people were employed. These were the best and brightest. In May they were given their redundancy notices. There were no jobs for them, even with the focus on 'new media'.

It has been Hobson's Choice for the ABC. Without proper funding the ABC could confine itself to radio and television, and ignore new and interactive communication media like the Internet. This would tend to condemn the ABC to an 'old media' ghetto, and lay it open to the charge that it is old fashioned, out of touch and set in its ways. Alternatively, if the ABC is to be an active player in the new media, it has to fund this activity by robbing radio and television. Either way, the ABC loses.

But the need to fund new media is only part of the story. There are also questions about how the ABC Board and Managing Director have used the limited funds at their disposal. How much money has gone into restructuring, redundancies, marketing, consultancies and increased management salaries? Why was it necessary to sack so many of the managers appointed by Brian Johns? Why have so many of the new managers, hand picked by Jonathan Shier, also jumped ship? Why was Jonathan Shier's new structure abandoned after just over a year?

Yes, the ABC needs more money. The $66 million taken away by the Coalition needs to be restored, and the ABC needs additional funding to participate effectively in new media like the Internet. But something also has to be done about the Board and the Managing Director. The practice of filling the Board with political cronies of the government of the day has to stop. The ABC needs an independent Board committed to public service broadcasting, and a Board capable of exercising effective corporate governance.

Australian Story is one of the ABC's few remaining fully funded documentary program series produced in-house . This is a documentary series that fits the ABC Charter like a glove, a program that brings inspiration and unity to our community with its uplifting stories of real people - with no funding compromise or bought-in programs.