ABC splashes $289,000 a week on advertising, promotions and audience research

Spending increases by 46 per cent – despite ABC’s claims of budgetary restraints.

From December to March, the ABC spent $4.9m on advertising, promoting the public broadcaster and audience research. Picture: Jeremy Piper

The ABC’s spending on advertising, promotions and audience research has soared to $289,000 a week – an increase of 46 per cent – and comes despite claims the public broadcaster is suffering budgetary restraints.

During the four-month period from December to March, the ABC spent $4.9m on advertising, promoting the public broadcaster and audience research, figures obtained under Freedom of Information laws by the Institute of Public Affairs found.

This is significantly up from the prior five-month period of July through to November 2021, when the ABC splashed $4.2m on such expenses, or the equivalent of about $197,000 a week.

Yet the broadcaster’s repeated attempts to spruik itself have failed, with managing director David Anderson resorting to sending a two-page letter to the campaign offices of both Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese urging them to agree to a debate on the ABC.

David Anderson

Sky News Australia held the first debate and Nine and Seven will follow by broadcasting showdowns between the leaders on Sunday and Wednesday.

The IPA’s director of communications, Evan Mulholland, said it was “inappropriate” for the ABC to be spending so much promoting itself. “If the ABC was uniquely connected to local communities and suburbs, instead of being trapped in the ivory towers of Ultimo and Southbank, it wouldn’t have to spend millions researching what mainstream Australians are thinking,” he said.

“It’s completely inappropriate for the ABC to spend millions of taxpayer dollars promoting itself with Google ad words, Facebook ads and billboards at the expense of commercial media who are forced to compete for revenue to pay for journalists and staff.” The FOI data shows in the four-month period from December through to March, the ABC spent about $2.7m on advertising, $126,000 on promotions and $2.1m on audience research.

This week activist group ABC Friends Victoria shared multiple videos on social media complaining about funding cuts, showing vision of former prime minister Tony Abbott in 2013 saying: “No cuts to the ABC or SBS.”

One 15-second clip then goes on to state, “Since 2014 the Coalition government has cut direct ABC funding by more than $500m” and urges viewers to say, “no to cuts and yes to the ABC”.

ABC Alumni chair and former Media Watch host Jonathan Holmes also recently argued the ABC had been left more than half a billion worse off under the Coalition government.

This comes despite the federal government announcing earlier this year it would commit $3.3bn over the next three years to the broadcaster, a move ABC chair Ita Buttrose welcomed.

An ABC spokesman defended the advertising, promotional and audience research spending and said it was, “important for all Australians to hear and know about the content and services the ABC offers to deliver as much value back to taxpayers as possible”.

“While we predominantly use our own platforms for such promotions, we also have a modest budget for marketing that is significantly lower than our commercial competitors, to reach and engage with people across the nation,” he said.

In recent months some of the ABC advertising has been on social media platforms including Facebook and Instagram, promoting its news services and election information, including ads stating, “sign up for election news and analysis from Annabel Crabb, ABC chief politics writer”. There have also been online ads promoting its streaming service iview.