What is the ABC's Budget?

Following the 1997/8 Budget, the ABC receives:

The table below compares the ABC's budget (ABC Appropriations) with the total amount the Government outlays for the Australian Budget (Commonwealth Government Outlays) for the financial years listed, and expressed as a percentage.

Despite the Government's claim for a need to cut spending across the board, it is easy to see where its priorities lay. The ABC has faced budget cuts from both the Labor Party and the Coalition over a considerable period.

As other government services have been expanded over the years the ABC has been progressively cut back.

We understand that most areas of government have taken or will have to take substantial cuts in its first two budgets. It is said that the ABC has to take its share of the hurt. There are two points to make in response to this:

a 10% cut is much greater than the cuts that all but one department had to take last year.

the ABC has suffered a decline of funding in real terms because of the gap between increasing costs (wage increases especially) and the ABC's actual appropriation. Yet it has not overspent its budget in any of the last six years and has absorbed $50m in increased costs in that time. In effect, it has already suffered a 10% cut since 1991.

Under the Labor Government the ABC took cuts every year after 1985, in real terms. In the last six years it has absorbed $50m of virtual cuts.

The massive 10% cut in the current budget on top of those, at a time when it needs more funds to modernise its technology (digitisation) and to implement the recommendations of the Mansfield Report, means that services will go, programs will be cut, and the government will wear the blame with the electorate.

Talking to Coalition MPs we hear complaints of excess and inefficiency in the ABC. Yet it continues to produce more and more while cutting its staff to make economies.

Where do the myths of excess and inefficiency come from?
Not one has been backed up with evidence.

Is the ABC necessary?
Is the ABC good value?

There is a very strong case to be made for the retention of a comprehensive and independent public broadcaster.

Media ownership is becoming increasingly concentrated and powerful. In one-newspaper cities like Adelaide this is of special concern.

The domination of payTV by global companies will squeeze the Australian voice and identity from our screens.

The ABC is our only guarantee of an Australian broadcaster operating without fear or favour.

But how does it compare with other public broadcasters?
Is it the wasteful and inefficient body that the myths suggest?

Channel 2 costs each household in Australia only $53 a year.
For comparison, cable TV costs approximately $600 a year.
Channel 9 costs at least $800m compared to $196m for Channel 2.

An Australian Icon

The membership of Friends of the ABC has increased by 1000% in some states since July 1996, and each cut or change in programming, especially in radio, brings a rush of new members.

More significant however, is evidence of the high standing of the ABC in the whole community. The ABC is trusted and respected. It is an Australian icon and the most highly regarded institution in Australia.

Public Opinion of the ABC and Funding An important national survey on public attitudes towards the ABC was published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 27-28 June 1996. The polling showed widespread public support for the ABC and opposition to funding cuts even from those who do not use the ABC. Question 3: Do you believe that the ABC's budget should be decreased, maintained at the current level or increased? Maintain ABC funding 61% Increase ABC funding 24% Decrease ABC funding 9% Unsure 6% That is, 85% were against the Government's action.

In the public perception, the cuts to the ABC budget are seen as an attack on the ABC by a vengeful Government seeking to control and influence it. Reports and comment in the quality press support this perception.
As we have been told by Coalition MPs, perception is everything.

The ABC's best kept secret is the range and detail of its services

To most people the ABC is Channel 2 and the radio station they most often listen to.

The person whose radio is permanently on the metropolitan station is unaware of the content of Radio National.

The young and not-so-young who listen to Triple J have been unaware that it was the ABC.

The city dwellers don't realise that in most of the bush there is nothing but the ABC.

So what do we get for our 7.5 cents a day?

Channel 2, a national television service carried by 600 transmitters with production and transmission centres in all State and Territory capitals.

And it doesen't all come out of Sydney or even Sydney and Melbourne. For example, 33% of the news and current affairs budget is spent in Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Hobart and Darwin, while at least 13% of the budget for other programs is spent outside Sydney and Melbourne.

Local services:

• Metropolitan Radio stations in 9 cities.
• Regional Radio with 49 studios and outposts.

• Radio National, a specialist spoken word network.
• Classic FM, a network devoted to classical music and performance.
• Triple J, FM youth network which reaches 9 cities and 36 regional centres.
• Parliamentary and News Network, live broadcasts of Parliament, and NewsRadio, a continuous news service broadcast when Parliament is not sitting.

Australia Television An international satellite television service transmitted to 28 countries and territories in Asia and the Pacific.

Concerts 6 symphony orchestras employing over 480 musicians, giving more than 670 performances a year to over 900,000 people.

Multimedia An on-line service on the internet and the development of CD-ROMS and other interactive media.

This array of services costs us just $550m a year.
And every one of these services is valued by a devoted audience - just ask Bob Mansfield.

investigative reporting; religion, health; education; law; family matters; aboriginal issues; ethnic affairs; Open Learning; classical music; unknown young bands; most of the documentaries; science; special interest groups; proceedings in Parliament; serious discussion of concerns to youth; international affairs; environmental issues; quality children's programs; the arts; literature; schools services; adult literacy; Australia talks back; history

In short, all the things that make a nation civilised and respected in the world.

MANSFIELD'S BLACK HOLE
Extra Calls on the ABC Budget

The Mansfield Report recommends the retention of the full range of domestic radio and television services, and states that the ABC must have long-term funding certainty to be able to do this.

He also suggests that it should be able to do this on $500m if it divests itself of Radio Australia and the Orchestras, and if it outsources most of its TV production and sells much of its property.

But there is a huge financial gap between the first point and the second.

The Report does not attempt to take into account the following financial demands:

• Redundancy payments of $50-60m as a result of a restructure of management already implemented, plus those resulting from outsourcing. And the Report does not even claim that outsourcing will save money.

• $200m is required for conversion to digital technology over 5 years.
  Mansfield states that: 'Government could make a modest one-off injection of capital.'
  Also that: 'the ABC can finance the majority of capital required from its own resources.'
  And: 'No further borrowings are recommended.'
  Where is this money to come from?
  The ABC will not be able to digitise, yet the real savings will come with digitisation.

• He proposes that the ABC be permitted 'to retain the proceeds from any sale of property to finance capital investment, the retirement of debt and redundancy costs.' But the disposal of property will take time. The property market is depressed. There will be little return in the next triennium.

• Orchestras: the ABC has divested itself of management and control of the orchestras but has guaranteed $30m support for each of the next three years. This is the same as for the last triennium. With a 10% cut in total budget, other services will suffer disproportionately.

• He recommends increases in localism, children and youth programs. Without extra funding for these expensive services, others would be cut to pay for them.

• He recommends increased and improved training facilities.
  No money is allowed for this.

• There is a possibility that Radio Australia will be retained, despite the recommendation that it should be abandoned and the savings held by the ABC. Even if Radio Australia is abandoned, it would save the ABC only $13m.

But taking into account the points above, there could be an overall shortfall of at least $50m and probably much more.

The Mansfield Black Hole will be bridged either by a revised budget appropriation or by cutting services and programs and possibly combining networks.
The Government will be either praised for the first or blamed for the second.