ABC Adelaide staff brace for cuts
About 40 ABC Adelaide staff are waiting nervously for confirmation their jobs will be lost following revelations on their own network last night.
ABC Media Watch presenter Paul Barry said South Australian television production outside of news and current affairs, and the state-based Friday editions of the 7.30 program – including 7.30SA – would be axed as a result of federal budget cuts.
Shortly after the revelations were aired on Media Watch, Turnbull revealed on the ABC’s Q&A program that the cuts would amount to about five per cent of the ABC’s budget over five years.
Turnbull is due to make an announcement about the cuts this Thursday.
ABC Adelaide staff are expected to learn their fate early next week.
Media reports have predicted Turnbull will this week announce cuts of up to $300 million over five years to the ABC and SBS.
You might like
Turnbull declined to put a dollar figure on the controversial cuts to the national broadcaster, but said they were “relatively modest”.
“It’s about five per cent of the ABC … it will average over five years about five per cent off the top,” he said.
Despite the Media Watch revelations, Turnbull was adamant the cuts would not require any cuts to programming.
“I have gone to considerable pains to ensure that the ABC is well able to deliver these savings without cutting into the resources available to programming, through cutting back office costs, administrative,” he said.
“Anyone here who has been in business … that could not manage to find five per cent out of efficiencies is not even trying.”
Sources at ABC Adelaide told InDaily they were being kept in the dark by national ABC management.
Stay informed, daily
“We’re finding out more from Media Watch than we do from everywhere else,” one said.
“We just don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“Ironically, they’re going to have to keep some back of house staff to process our retrenchments,” said another.
“A lot of the people here have kids and mortgages.
“I’ve had better days, mate.”
Rumours are circulating at the ABC that the cuts may lead to a broader clear-out of its Collinswood building, leaving only ABC News and 891 Radio on the first and ground floors – a move which would affect hundreds of staff.
The Collinswood building remains the ABC’s only built-for-purpose radio, television, orchestral and production building outside of Sydney and Melbourne.
Most recently, it produced the popular 1970s retrospective – Countdown: Do Yourself a Favour – which attracted more than 1.4 million viewers on Sunday night.
In July, InDaily reported that staff working on international programming at the Collinswood studios would have their jobs axed due to the Federal Government’s decision to cancel the ABC’s Australia Network international TV contract, as well as concerns for the future of television production in South Australia.
At the time, Community and Public Sector Union President Michael Tull warned that “there still there may be more job losses to come which will wreck morale among staff and will be bad news for Australians who expect quality services from the ABC”.
“This is all part of the Abbott Government’s plan to attack and neuter the ABC,” Tull said.
ABC Adelaide management declined to comment.
Before the federal election, Tony Abbott promised there would be no cuts to the ABC or SBS if his party were elected.
Want to see more stories from InDailySA in your Google search results?
- Click here to set InDailySA as a preferred source.
- Tick the box next to "InDailySA". That's it.
