As far as the public broadcasting sector goes, now is the winter of our discontent. Today, Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull made good on the much vaunted, often photoshopped, frequently passed around broken promise of Tony Abbott and handed down the specifics of the previously announced funding cuts to both the ABC and SBS. In short? It’s not pretty.
Turnbull announced that the ABC will receive an operational funding cut of 4.6% over the next five years – in dollar terms this amounts to $254million being ripped out of the broadcasters budget over that period of time. Meanwhile at SBS, funding has been scaled back by 1.7% – with $25.2million coming out of their budget over the coming years.
Turnbull immediately went on the front foot after the announcement, pre-emptively attacking the networks for blaming any future programming cuts on the loss of funds.
“There is a temptation for management to blame the Government for some of these program changes. That would be cowardly. The ABC management know that they can meet these savings without reducing the resources available to programming – furthermore they know that the Government and their board know too.“
The funding cuts are expected to herald the end of state-based 7:30 Report production, along with cutbacks at Lateline, the collapsing of international bureaux’s, huge cuts at ABC Radio, and the winding up of non-news operations at ABC’s South Australian facility – despite Christopher Pyne‘s desire to not see that happen.
Though the ABC is yet to officially respond to the cuts, it is expected that this slashing of funds will result in the loss of approximately 500 jobs – a loss of personnel and resources which, at a broadcasting organisation, would almost certainly impact programming in one way, shape, form, or another. Particularly at an organisation that Andrew Denton once referred to as an “invaluable cultural institution” during a chat with us here at Pedestrian.tv.
The one thing we know for sure is that strings at our national broadcaster are about to be pulled a lot tighter, whether anyone likes it – or if it’s in anyone’s best interests – or not.
Photo: Stefan Postles via Getty Images.
via ABC News.
