ABC managing director Mark Scott calls for clarity on cuts, rules out cuts to online and mobile services
ABC managing director Mark Scott has called for the Federal Government to give more detail over proposed funding cuts to the national broadcaster.
In a speech at the University of Melbourne, Mr Scott called on the Government to end the uncertainty over funding levels, saying "we effectively have no other way of raising revenue".
Referring to Prime Minister Tony Abbott's election-eve commitment that there would be no cuts to the ABC, he said: "The reality is the ABC’s budget has already been cut this year. And more cuts are on the way".
"We are still not sure precisely how much will be cut. We are still not sure precisely when the cuts will become payable," he said.
"And decisions around size and timing could, naturally, have a material impact on ABC audiences."
Read the full speech here.
Hitting out at the Government's budget decision to cut a "down payment" from ABC funding, Mr Scott said it was "very rare indeed" for cuts to be imposed in the middle of one of the triennial funding agreements which he said were vital to allow the ABC to "undertake multi-year contracts and plan with some certainty, most importantly in program production areas, with a secure income stream".
"In the May budget, the Government introduced the somewhat novel concept of a 'down payment'," he said.
"This 'down payment' came in the form of an extraction of funds from our triennial funding settlement - a 1 per cent cut to base funding and the termination of the Australia Network contract, which still had over nine years to run.
"ABC International has been forced to downsize and more than 80 people have left the ABC as a result - many great talents are now lost to us, over a thousand years of experience has gone out the door.
"The challenge was not helped at all by the fact that compensation provided by DFAT for terminating the contract fell short - by more than $5 million - of the actual costs of termination.
"Now, 'down payments' normally provide some notion of rights for the payee about when and how the final payment will be made," he added.
"But not so in this case."
Management working on 'range of options' to deal with cuts
Mr Scott said ABC management was working on a "range of options" and "contingency plans" to deal with the impact of the cuts, both those which have been revealed and those which are yet to be confirmed.
He said "efficiency" was in the ABC's "organisational DNA" and said more "efficiency savings" were on the way.
But he warned that "the mythical 'backroom' solution, for instance, where large savings can be ripped out of a media organisation while content remains untouched, suggests binary decision-making, some separation between two fields that simply does not accord with practice in any organisation".
"Of course we want to focus on support services to make efficiency savings. But the vast majority of the ABC’s budget - apart from transmission - is related to the making of content.
"To find substantial savings, you need to look at all parts of your operation."
Mr Scott said the ABC was "determined to remain an audience-focused, content-driven media organisation" and said the organisation's digital strategy was a vital component of that aim.
He said the ABC's digital content had "always gone head to head with a vast range of local and global competitors".
"We continue to look at the ABC’s current content spend to find where funds might be saved, freed up to reinvest where we know it's most needed - the most competitive media space of all, online and mobile products and services," he said.
"We will have to spend less on television and radio to spend more on online and mobile - not just in content, but on the capacity to deliver the services demanded."
Mr Scott said the ABC could follow the BBC's lead in choosing to "rationalise our channel offerings on the terrestrial system" and could look at cutting "major capital costs" by migrating some of its technology to the cloud.
"The one option we will not be considering is to shut down investment in online and mobile. Close iView. Turn off public news online, or stop streaming it to mobiles and tablets," he said.
"The responsibility now rests with the ABC Board to ensure the ABC is as relevant and respected in the future as it has been in the past - and to find the funds from within to invest appropriately to secure that future."
