ABC site takes on commercial giants of lifestyle

The ABC is poised to launch a lifestyle website which staff have been told will be a “Buzzfeed page for the ABC”.

Osman Faruqi gave an indication as to the site’s content by sharing with social media followers a video about making pickles.

The ABC is poised to launch a multi-million-dollar lifestyle website that will cover topics more traditionally associated with women’s magazines, including recipes, sex and relationships, travel and fashion.

Unofficially, staff say that ABC Life will be a “BuzzFeed page for the ABC” and its purpose is “to replicate content that does well on commercial sites”.

The government has ordered a competitive neutrality inquiry to examine whether the ABC and SBS compete unfairly with commercial broadcasters because of their taxpayer funding.

While supporters of the project say its content is akin to what is broadcast on ABC local radio, others fear it puts greater emphasis on lifestyle journalism at the expense of traditional ABC concerns, and that the website, whose scheduled launch this week has been delayed, will compete against commercial media companies including youth websites BuzzFeed and Junkee and magazine publishers Bauer and Pacific Publications.

The website is part of an ABC push to bring its digital content to the fore and comes as 22 staff made redundant from city newsrooms last week leave the ABC. They will be replaced by new hires with more digital skills.

ABC Life is expected to compete with commercial sites such as BuzzFeed News’s Tasty website, which is the most popular page on Facebook with 94 million global followers. Tasty publishes recipe videos and food content.

The ABC advertised for 18 people for the project. One successful applicant was Osman Faruqi, who was hired after leaving youth website Junkee, whose parent company is outdoor advertising and media company ooh! media.

Mr Faruqi gave an indication as to the site’s content by sharing with social media followers a video about making pickles.

Sinddy Ealy, the ABC section secretary for the Commonwealth and Public Sector Union, said the ABC should publish a range of content to fulfil its charter remit to all Australians.

“The frustration of our members is that this type of content is increasingly prioritised by the ABC and to the detriment of content much more editorially involved and researched,” Ms Ealy said.

“Just last week, the last of news journalists made redundant recently left the ABC — 100 years of experience walked out the door and this is launching, so there is discontent about that.”

The project is led by Scott Spark, the former audience engagement manager for Radio National, and its aim is to “create digital journalism that builds connections and makes a difference to people’s lives”.

Guardian Australia said the website had hired 18 staff and had a budget of $8 million, which the ABC disputed.

Funding for ABC Life comes from the Great Ideas Grant, a $20m initiative launched last year as part of a strategy for ­investing in content.

“ABC Life will make a broad range of quality and engaging ABC content more easily accessible to our audiences. The project has a small dedicated team and mostly gives existing ABC employees from around Australia an opportunity to work on an exciting new digital project,” an ABC spokesman said.

“A launch date has not been confirmed. While we don’t comment on internal budgets, Guardian Australia’s figures were significantly inaccurate.”