ABC urged to consider selling properties to shore up finances
The ABC should consider selling its valuable inner city properties and moving elsewhere to shore up finances, Paul Fletcher says.
Federal Communications Minister Paul Fletcher wants the ABC to consider offloading its offices in the nation’s capital cities, as part of the public broadcaster's new five-year strategic plan.
The plan is set to be delivered at the end of the month and include the loss of around 200 jobs.
In a letter to ABC managing director David Anderson, Mr Fletcher said "consolidation of the ABC's capital city property portfolio presents an opportunity to transition to new, purpose-built facilities and to secure the corporation's long term future".
"I would strongly encourage you include a detailed property asset strategy as part of your strategic plan," he said in the letter, a copy of which has been seen by The Australian.
The ABC’s Sydney headquarters, located in Ultimo, is valued at around $330 million. Its Melbourne operations are in Southbank.
Mr Fletcher's letter comes less than a month after his meeting with Mr Anderson, ABC chairwoman Ita Buttrose and Prime Minister Scott Morrison in Canberra to discuss the ABC's future.
Mr Anderson is leading an extensive review of ABC’s television, radio and online operations in a bid to plug an $84m budget hole, with plans to focus beyond the inner cities to suburban and rural communities, and improve its representation of multicultural Australia. He told The Australian in October that job losses were inevitable.
Mr Fletcher acknowledged that Australian broadcasting organisations are operating in a “tough environment and the ABC is not immune to sectoral headwinds”.
“Audience tastes are changing; new technology is impacting the delivery of content; competition from international streaming platforms has transformed viewing habits; and because content on those platforms typically has higher production values, this creates pressures for you to spend more on content,” he said in the two-page letter.
“A strategic plan which addresses the challenges of the modern media environment is crucial,” he said, noting that media companies are responding by sharing broadcast infrastructure, outsourcing and sharing services, and “more efficient utilisation of real property”.
Mr Fletcher said Kerry Stokes-controlled Seven West Media has consolidated its Sydney operations to its main office Eveleigh, supported by news resources at Martin Place, and that Nine Entertainment has sold its Willoughby premises and is moving staff to North Sydney later this year.
Mr Fletcher said the recent interim financial results of listed-Australian media companies showed the "continuing significant financial and operational challenges faced by the sector and that measures to increase workforce productivity will be increasingly important".
"These companies have emphasised their need to refocus cost structures, improve core business resilience and efficiency, and apply entrepreneurial thinking in delivering quality news and entertainment content to audiences,” he said.
Mr Fletcher said “the economics of regional media markets, exacerbated by recent bushfires, also challenges the viability of traditional broadcast models, including local news and journalism.
"I would encourage the ABC to consider how its own operations are responding to the need to maintain public interest journalism for a healthy Australian democracy,” he said in the two-page letter to Mr Anderson.
An ABC spokesman decline to comment.
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