Malcolm Turnbull confirms ABC and SBS cuts to total $308m over five years
Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has revealed the extent of funding cuts to the ABC and SBS, telling a forum in Adelaide this lunchtime “the SBS and ABC will emerge from this process much stronger”.
Both organisations will lose a combined $308m over the next five years, with SBS contributing $53.7m of that, and the ABC the rest, but Turnbull insisted the government will not “direct the organisations on operational matters” and allow them to decide where to make the cuts.
The cuts to the ABC are in line with those flagged by Media Watch host Paul Barry on Monday night’s show, which he said would lead to between 4-500 job losses and closure of some operations. Yesterday Education Minister Christopher Pyne started a petition to save a production unit in South Australia threatened with closure.
SBS managing director Michael Ebeid said the cuts “whilst anticipated, is sizeable and will naturally be felt by our organisation”, while ABC managing director Mark Scott warned it would “impact on the kinds of content we can make and offer”.
oh dear, the Greens and Labour may have to pay for their own advertising and PR moving forward
House Murdoch ticks off another debt paid.
fleshpeddler, you seem to be troubled by ABC is biased myth syndrome. Neither the Greens or the ALP get advertising on the ABC. But both will enjoy the free kick Abbott has supplied them as they chant, “No cuts to the ABC or SBS.”
Good move. The government should go back to running the country, not a media outlet. If the ABC is so good then its consumers will pay for the content if they want to keep it ad free.
Dave – This government is incapable of running any country.
We have to remember Turnbull is really only talking to the members of the Liberal Party in the Federal Parliament. He would like them to vote for him as leader after Abbott implodes. He probably thinks his popularity with the public will be the winner for him. But after this week that will probably disappear as quickly as an Abbott promise.
So can the LNP be kicked out in the next election and if so how can opposition compete with the Murdoch / LNP press propaganda? How is it going to be achieved?
Proof again that the most powerful member of the Australian parliament is actually an unelected former citizen. All hail king Rupert.
to claim that the ABC is not left leaning is remarkable Lindsay. Congratulations!
They must really be struggling to survive.
Their Managing Director is paid $800,000 a year.
Their celebrity autocue readers are paid $400,000 a year.
Oh, the humanity!
No fleshpedder. There have been numerous inquiries into bias on the ABC and all have proved there is none. There have also been several university studies into the same subject and none have found Left bias, however one did claim a slight Right bias.
It is remarkable there are still people out there asserting there is Left bias when none has been found. It is a bit like believing in the Lock Ness Monster.
Agree that salaries paid to on-air ABC presenters are completely out of whack, especially as many seem to use the broadcaster’s facilities to express their personal views. All contracts should be renenogiated.
I have been a devotee of the ABC since the 1950s but regret the declining standards and blatant waste of funds in many areas.
It is basically a branch of the public service, bloated with middle-management and needing half a dozen people to change a light bulb.
A newspaper report claimed 150 ABC staffers employed in Queensland worked in news…why then did ABC radio deem it necessary to use journalism students from the University of Queensland as reporters during G20?
The cuts are justified to trim the “dead wood”.
The govt can blah as much as they like. It will not affect the behaviour of journalists one iota.
Budget cuts on the other hand will impact the fat bureaucracy that scott built around himself.
I reckon Ebeid will get his job.
I see there are some 1950’s attitudes to the public serivce in there too. Speak to a doctor at the end of their 17th hour on shift about how the public service is “bloated” sometime. Make sure you have private medical insurance first though.
Irrespective of whether you agree or not with the cuts, to be told “I will not do this”, hand them the power, and it turns out to be a great big new lie – THAT’S the appalling thing.
That is an odd claim myriad, “salaries paid to on-air ABC presenters are completely out of whack” out of whack with what?
From what has been published I would bet there are sport reporters on newspapers earning as much if not more. There would be magazine editors with bigger pay packets. If they were on commercial TV they would be getting considerably more. What’s more I can not recall any of them using the ABC “broadcaster’s facilities to express their personal views.”
But you might be right I do not watch early morning TV.
It’s just neoliberal speak. A funding cut is not a cut it’s an efficiency dividend. A petrol tax is nor a tax it’s a levy. A pension cut is not a cut it’s a reindexation. And so it goes ….
Mike and Myriad. Thanks for the salary data/estimates/guesses.
They merely confirm that those working at the ABC are paid around one-third to one-half of the commensurate salaries at the commercial networks.
Given the ABC’s audience shares that represents remarkably good value and indeed a case for salary increases.
Abbott is not smart enough to be Machiavellian but his Chief of Staff is. Turnbull is far ahead of Abbott in the polls as leader, or preferred PM. So, Abbott makes Turnbull the bad guy, and has him emasculate ABC and SBS. Two birds with one stone. Everybody hates Turnbull, the far right fall back in love with Abbott, and ABC and SBS become compliant to survive. If it all turns to shit Abbott will blame Turbull. Neat aye?
Merge the leftie ABC with SBS. Both hopeless bloated organizations. Even the ABC staff will tell you privately that you must be a leftie or a greenie to work in the place. And you must wear black or have a beanie on your head ready for the next anti Abbott rally. Lindsay you would be at the front of the rally I am sure. Time to get a job for you I think.
Mike – ABC on air personalities may earn less than their commercial counterparts, but they work in a rarified atmosphere that compensates for a great deal. The ABC foreign correspondents who risk life and limb in combat zones and covering catastrophic events probably deserve much higher salaries.
Ahhh yes myriad. That would be the rarified atmosphere of bringing in your own tea and coffee.
I’m also taking up a collection for a new tin-foil hat for Jennifer.
jennifer just where is this leftie ABC you are witting about? It is not our national broadcaster with a proven record of impartiality. It is the one people on the political Right make unproven allegation about? Nobody knows where that ABC is. Just who works there? I know it is none of the people you have described because at our ABC as the people there do not fit your description. Maybe you are commenting on the myth ABC.
But you are right.
If there is to be a rally to express dissatisfaction with the Abbott lies about no cuts to the ABC, I will be supporting it. But I would not support a leftie ABC, because I believe the public broadcaster should be impartial.
Lindsay if you work at the ABC I stand by what I said. Time to leave the tea room and your one day off a month, less than 40 hour week and get a real job. No ? I did not think so. Impartial ?? Hilarious.
jennifer I do not work at the ABC and never have. But as I do work in the media I know many people who do. None fit your description of them. None have time to loiter in the tea room. None work a 40 hour week, but would love to, if only they could cut back. So do, they leave and get a job in the commercial media. There are many exABC people working for the commercial media and there are many ex-commercial media people who move to the ABC. You are not suggesting they are all let wingers are you?
As for impartiality, if you think the ABC is not, prove it. There have been many who have tried, only to be shown up as one eyed Right Wingers.
While you are at it the Lock Ness monster, Bigfoot and unicorns are all waiting for someone find them too.The myth about bias in the ABC has been going on for decades and it is way past the time when it needs to be shown up for what it is. Rubbish.
Damn you Lindsay.
There was a strong ideological thread going there, and you had to mess it all up by introducing knowledge, experience and facts. What IS the world coming to.
If my mainly beloved (thanks, VT and TF and a few other world-class presenters) Australian Broadcasting Corporation is to suffer a trimming of its payroll at the hands of the feral government then I would like the first group of dismissals to include those boofheads who have anything to do with the ABC’s habit of interrupting the final minutes or seconds of a program (I mean during the closing credits) by employing adolescent simpering or gushing or fake-masculine growling or fake-seductive purring voiceovers to blurt out prehype for programs yet to come.
It’s a habit that is not indulged in by Australia’s other “free”-to-air networks. They seem to have more sense than the said boofheads.
If you want too see how out of touch the ABC are with the real world read the conditions they now get. Hilarious. You cannot be fired unless you have multiple meetings, and even then really it is not possible. Leave is possible for pretty much any reason you like. This is what Turnbull has had enough of. The contract makes the CFMEU look soft. http://www.abc.net.au/careers/.....132016.PDF
Removing dead wood and time servers can reinvigorate an organisation. Many other media organisations have survived and moved on from redundancies in recent years, but their staff did not get all this sympathy and handwringing. It’s not the end of the world.
Jennifer.
56.6.1 Nothing in this Agreement limits or affects in any way the ABC’s right to dismiss an employee summarily if the employee has committed serious misconduct.
Seems pretty black and white to me.
Trim, yes you are right, many media organisations have survived cut back and moved on. However the loss of quality is hurting them badly. It is not doing them any good at all and at Fairfax if they keep moving on in the way they have been it will be the end of their world.
There really are a lot of ignorant commenters. I can only imagine that these empty vessels take what is written in the tele as gospel?
The ALP is a centre right party. Before commenting, perhaps read some real books and not Rupert’s comics?
Malcolm Turnbull is rather like fools gold, he glitters and excites the imagination, he looks incredibly like the real thing, and he has substance. Unfortunately, and also like fools gold, he is not the authentic precious metal.
This opinion of mine was formed when he had the leadership, a position to which he was physically and intellectually suited, but it soon crumbled and fell over.
He is now communications minister, and the best he is doing is to communicate. He is communicating the rabbit scared government’s line that this is an economic policy, which when focused through thick smoke and reflected in a mirror, it is, but it is also a much better, in fact an almost perfect act of bastardy.
Why would you outsource SBS to a private third party when the ABC owns a playout facility?! You would save millions just there.