ABC on track to broaden its reach to mainstream Australians

The ABC admits it needs to better represent mainstream Australians and it’s committed to doing this by 2025.

An ABC spokesman said it was working on its five-year plan and ‘will ensure that by 2025 at least 75 per cent of content-makers work outside of the ABC’s Ultimo headquarters’. Picture: AFP

The ABC says it’s on track to have most of its content-makers working outside of the broadcaster’s Sydney headquarters by 2025.

It comes after ABC board member Joe Gersh conceded the public broadcaster needed a better representation of mainstream Australia.

The ABC confirmed it was following its plan – released last year – to work towards broadening its base of reporters and producers to ensure 75 per cent were based outside of its head office in Ultimo, in inner-city Sydney.

Mr Gersh, a Melbourne-based businessman, last week said the ABC had too many content producers based in inner-city locations and the broadcaster was failing to “diversely represent what Australia is today”.

“It is true that if you are living in the inner-urban areas of one of our capital cities you have a different perspective of people who might live in the regions where the ABC is hugely valued,” he said on ABC radio’s Melbourne morning show hosted by Virginia Trioli.

A spokesman for Communications Minister Paul Fletcher said it was vital the taxpayer-funded broadcaster represented many Australians.

“The minister is on the record as supporting the location of our national broadcasters in areas that make them as responsive as possible to mainstream Australians,” he said.

An ABC spokesman said it was working on its five-year plan and “will ensure that by 2025 at least 75 per cent of content-makers work outside of the ABC’s Ultimo headquarters”.

In June last year it was reported 66 per cent of content producers worked outside of Ultimo.

The 2019-20 annual report says the ABC had 4051 full-time employees and 52.3 per cent were based in NSW, followed by Victoria (16.1 per cent) and Queensland (10.4).