ABC Yields to Non-Market Pressure
Big cuts at the ABC, where tax-funded overstaffing will be reduced from “obscene” to merely “insane”.
Big cuts at the ABC, where tax-funded overstaffing will be reduced from “obscene” to merely “insane”:
ABC announces up to 250 job cuts in order to save $40 million
That’s $160,000 per job. So they’re only getting rid of the junior staff. Everybody’s favourite unloved, unread indulgence – ABC Life – is copping a lifestyle change:
Lifestyle website ABC Life will become ABC Local and have a "broader editorial direction".
ABC Life editor Bhakthi Puvanenthiran said on Twitter that her team would be halved under the change.
Breaking: We are losing up to half the ABC Life team as we rebrand as ABC Local.
— Bhakthi (@bhakthi) June 24, 2020
It's devastating news and the details are unclear right now, but what I know for sure is I'm really proud of what we've built, telling diverse stories the ABC has never told before.
Let’s look at some of the untold stories presently being told at ABC Life:
Do ‘baby on board’ signs work?
How to support Black Lives Matter after it stops trending
Yumi Stynes on how lockdown transformed the way she thinks about ‘beauty’
How to make vegetarian yum cha-style dumplings from scratch
What to do with all the packaging from online shopping
According to ABC managing director David Anderson, the staff reductions are all part of a long-term plan:
Mr Anderson announced the “Five Year Plan” to staff on Wednesday, saying the redundancies and savings would affect every division across the ABC.
Interesting choice of phrase.
Changes flagged include a shift to more suburban and regional news coverage and ABC Comedy being rebranded to focus on programs relating to the arts, science, education and religion.
It should never have been branded “comedy” in the first place. Maybe these changes will begin to address a certain imbalance:
Most of the ABC’s near 3280 workforce was in NSW. It had 1696 staff there, with 495 in Victoria and 333 in Queensland, according to the broadcaster’s 2019 annual report.
And most of those NSW staff are concentrated within a few inner-city suburbs. Just sell the whole leviathan and let genuine market forces sort things out.
UPDATE. ABC Life’s only fan is sad:
So proud of my partner and his team who made ABC Life from scratch, from the same funding initiative that gave us ABC Kids Listen, Unravel and more.
— Benjamin Law ç¾…æ—能 (@mrbenjaminlaw) June 24, 2020
Here are 10 things ABC Life executed effortlessly across their work, with which the rest of Australian media bafflingly struggles.
UPDATE II:
Emma Alberici’s position as the ABC’s chief economics correspondent appears to be the highest-profile casualty of cuts announced on Wednesday at the public broadcaster.
In documents emailed to staff by Gaven Morris, the ABC’s director of news, analysis and investigations, Alberici’s position was announced as a potential redundancy.
However, it is not yet certain that Alberici will leave the ABC. It is understood she could remain at the public broadcaster in another capacity.
In the next few weeks the ABC will undertake a “process of consultation”, in which it will consult Alberici on positions that fit with her skills set.
Shouldn’t take long.