ABC set to unveil massive shake-up

ABC boss Michelle Guthrie will tomorrow unveil a radical reorganisation that could lead to reshuffle at the top.

ABC managing director Michelle Guthrie. Picture: Aaron Francis

The ABC will this week axe its television and radio divisions in a far-reaching shake-up that will reorganise 70 per cent of its 4766 staff that produce content, allocating them into just three teams.

Under the new structure, likely to be announced tomorrow, old program-making units and divisions will be swept aside in favour of a structure that allows ABC journalists and producers to keep pace with the different ways audiences consume media, without bias to old television and radio broadcast schedules.

The massive upheaval will force the relocation of staff and take months to implement, but no job losses or budget cuts are expected.

The ABC refused to comment, but over recent months managing director Michelle Guthrie has given the public a clear indication of her thinking on the reorganisation.

“We are transitioning rapidly from a one-to-many, mass media approach to one that fosters a one-to-one relationship between content makers and consumers,” Ms Guthrie said recently.

“Management has worked with content makers to realise the second phase of our transformation work: reorganising our content divisions to bring them closer to audiences and provide more flexible budgets and decision-making processes,” she said in the ABC annual report.

Under Ms Guthrie’s plan, the four content divisions of television, radio, regional and news will be replaced by three content teams and staff will transfer into specialist teams, such as science or arts, that will be expected to produce content for vision, audio and digital platforms.

Under the new structure, the news and regional divisions will remain and alongside them will sit a new content team, covering everything from comedy to science, grouped in areas such as entertainment, factual, drama and sport.

The ABC science unit was restructured in 2016, when 11 staff on the weekly science TV program Catalyst were made redundant.

The unit was reorganised to produce radio programs including The Science Show as well as podcasts and content for online features. Catalyst was switched from a weekly magazine format to 17 one- hour documentaries, while the Stargazing Live special event demanded content for television, radio and online.

ABC chairman Justin Miline. Picture: Renee Nowytarger

There is likely to be a reshuffle of top ABC management as the new structure will not support the current management team, where Gaven Morris is the director of news, David Anderson is the director of television, Michael Mason is the director of radio and Fiona Reynolds is the director of regional.

Already the news division has reorganised. Last month the ABC axed 28-year-old current affairs program Lateline and created a 30-person-strong investigative unit and a 20-strong team of specialist reporters including education, consumer affairs, indigenous and social affairs. At the time Ms Guthrie urged ABC supporters to look at the ABC’s commitment to its core journalistic mission, not on “brand labels”, a philosophy that underpins much of the changes she is about to announce.

Staffing cuts have continued. At the end of October, 11 news staff, including senior 7.30 report and ABC board member Matt Peacock, took redundancy.

This week’s content reorganisation will see the local and regional division remain a core part of the national broadcaster, which Ms Guthrie indicated earlier in her tenure by accompanying the regional division on a trip to Cygnet in Tasmania as it made an episode of Back Roads. The managing director also took her daughter to Port Lincoln to go fishing with the local staff and has an unstated ambition to visit each ABC centre.

When Ms Guthrie streamlined management in March and cut 200 staff, she diverted savings into creating 80 new regional positions over 18 months. She also established a new content ideas fund, open to all employees, dubbed the Great Ideas Grant, vowing to up its $20 million fund to $50m.

Staff workshops and consultation and staff redundancies have continued sporadically through the year.

After the announcement, set for tomorrow, Ms Guthrie is set to spruik the reorganisation to the production sector at the Screen Producers Association conference in Melbourne, which ABC chairman Justin Milne will address on Thursday.