Mark Scott targets cutbacks to ABC digital

THE ABC will shut about 100 websites as it searches for savings in the wake of its $50-million-a-year funding cut.

ABC managing director Mark Scott at a Senate estimates committee hearing at Parliament House on Thursday.

THE ABC will shut about 100 websites as it searches for savings in the wake of its $50-million-a-year funding cut.

The move is expected to be ­revealed by managing director Mark Scott on Monday when he announces extensive job cuts and other efficiency measures at a staff meeting in Sydney.

In an interview with The Weekend Australian, Mr Scott ­denied the anticipated website closures were related to calls for the ABC to vacate the digital space and stop competing with commercial organisations.

“Not at all,” he said. “We will be investing more in online and ­mobile services, but it will be done in a more focused way.”

In the interview Mr Scott also:

Predicts a television revolution next year that could lead to the closure of some TV and radio broadcast transmissions and their replacement with internet streaming services.

Reveals plans to charge for some iView services may be extended to other ABC products, but said major news websites would remain free.

Rejects criticism of the ABC as “commercial self-interest”.

Accepts that the buck stops with him on editorial content regardless of whether he holds the title of editor-in-chief.

Pledges to see through the changes forced by the funding cuts before deciding whether to serve out his second full term as managing director, due to expire in July 2016.

The ABC has about 320 websites, established for individual television programs and for each of its radio stations in four local and national analog networks as well as its digital radio services.

Mr Scott would not confirm ­reports of the impending closure of 100 sites.

But he said: “We have let a thousand flowers bloom in our online and mobile services, but we can’t do everything we may have wanted to do and we will need to focus our online and mobile ­development around key products and ensure we have a clear sense of priority and focus.”

It is understood the surviving sites with the highest priorities will centre on news services, TV catch-up viewing through iView and youth audiences through the Triple J sites. The controversial opinion site The Drum will also continue.

Responding to criticism that the ABC had spent thousands of dollars on internet search engine optimisation to promote its news services at the time of former prime minister Gough Whitlam’s death, Mr Scott says the online cuts would not extend to SEO payments.

“We have always spent money on marketing but we spend a fraction of what our competitors spend, simply because we don’t have the resources,” he said.

“We do it very efficiently to drive traffic to our news sites and it will remain.”

Mr Scott, who faced a four-hour grilling by the Senate estimates committee on Thursday night, said he believed there would be significant changes to the media industry in a revolution that would kick off next year. “I anticipate next year we’ll see bold steps towards a world of streaming content, global content and unscheduled, or on-demand, content,” he said. “Australia is about three years behind the US on this extraordinary flip to consumption on smartphones and tablets.

“This has enormous implications. As global content floods in, a very important question is who will tell Australian stories? At the ABC we see ourselves as being the home of Australian stories and Australian conversations.

“If you ask me to look ahead for the next five years, we will need to answer the question: what content best needs to be delivered through terrestrial transmitter towers and what content can be just as well delivered through streaming?”

Mr Scott said the BBC’s decision essentially to turn off its TV youth network and direct traffic towards its iPlayer had given the ABC “pause for thought”.

“You still create the content but instead of watching it at a scheduled time it is there for anyone to access at any time,” he said.

“I don’t think we are at that point yet here. There are still lots of people who want to sit on couches with a controller or listen to the radio and tune into programs as they know it, but a point will come in the next five years where we might think we can save money on transmission and focus more on streaming services.”

About 20 per cent of the ABC’s annual $1 billion-plus budget is spent on terrestrial transmission of radio and TV services. Mr Scott said he did not envisage the ­shutdown of regional radio transmitters.

“I think the importance of the ABC in the regions is growing, not diminishing,” he said. “Yes, transmission costs and news services are expensive, but we have to be mindful of the overall market and where there is weakness you must be conscious of that when you make your decisions.”

While commercial regional radio operators, under cost pressures, were withdrawing news and information services, Mr Scott said he saw “the need to be in radio”, although there was growing pressure to provide streaming services of radio to the bush and look at how to deliver content on apps and mobile devices.

Mr Scott has previously flagged plans to charge for some iView catch-up TV services and said the user-pays principle might be extended to other ABC products and services.

“At the moment iView has a 14-day window and then it’s gone,” he said.

“We will introduce a button on the site that allows people to click to buy older archive content. It meets an audience demand and (would) be an additional service, though I don’t think it will raise a huge amount of money.”

Asked if this could be the thin end of the wedge in a move towards the “PayBC”, Mr Scott said: “This is certainly something we need to look at. We think there are precedents for people paying for some things.”

Asked to comment on demands made in an editorial published in The Australian calling for more regional and local news reporting, more non-metropolitan sport coverage, a reconnection with state-base orchestras, deeper rural coverage and the development of a talent pool of program makers and journalists, Mr Scott said the ABC led the media sector.

“We put more reporters, more storytellers in regional areas and we’re a great place for talent to be developed,” he said.

“We have a close relationship with symphony orchestras and will be recording hundreds of live concerts next year as part of a relationship that goes back 82 years.

“I think the broad line emerging in criticism from News Corporation (publisher of The Weekend Australian), that we should stick to our knitting and not play in online and mobile areas, is simply commercial self-interest that shows no understanding of the ABC Act and the ABC’s charter.”

Asked if the ABC needed an editor-in-chief, following Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s announcement that he would write to the board suggesting Mr Scott be stripped of the title, he said: “As chief executive, I am still responsible for all content. Our content heads regularly ­appear before the board and discuss editorial standards, correction policies and editorial policies and the board is very engaged in editorial issues.

“As chief executive you’re responsible for everything that happens in the organisation, but this is a matter to be considered and determined by the board.”

Asked if he intended to see out his second full five-year term as managing director, due to end in July 2016, Mr Scott said: “Twenty months is a long time in media. I am pleased at how the ABC has seen growth and has become innovative in the kinds of services we have been able to deliver, but I appreciate that we now face different kinds of challenges.

“There are different demands on us now. I have been encouraged by the board to lead us through this time of change and when we get through it then I’ll sit down and reflect and talk further with the board. It’s too premature at this stage. There is still a long way to go and a lot of work to be done.”