Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee, , 5:44:55 to 5:48:47
ABC executives explain the increasing difficulty in separating costs between radio, TV, and online platforms as the organization shifts toward genre-based budgeting and cross-platform content.
Topics: Government spending, Efficiency dividend
Speakers: Hugh Marks, Speaker 31, Ms Deena Amorelli, Senator Lidia Thorpe, Senator Varun Ghosh
Um I would say so, Senator.
Um I can talk to the uh FY26 um financial year. There were 76 redundancies actioned to date this year, uh, this financial year there have been 18 redundancies in total. We currently do have a workplace change proposal out at the moment about our screen operations division that's still in play. Consultation just closed on Friday. Um, but that's the total number uh 76 for last financial year and 18 to date this year.
And how many were First Nations?
I don't have that number, Senator, I'd have to take that on notice, please.
Thank you. Uh I'm not sure how much time I've got.
Move the call in one moment, so have you got one more question?
One more, yep, thank you.
Uh Senator, there's been no proposal to reduce our First Nations staff that I'm aware of. I think even in the change proposal that was mooted in the area, I don't think there was a loss of roles. I think it was the same number of roles. Um, but my job I I guess partly is to ensure that, and this is something that I'm quite passionate about, as I would call it, to get more um money on screen to deliver more content and services to audiences. If I have to, you know, if there are areas I think within the ABC that need to change to enable us to do that. I think we need to be prepared to continue to make those decisions. But as I said, I'm not sure that there's certainly not any proposal to reduce our First Nations staff or content.
Um Senator Whit.
Rest on notice.
Yeah, thank you.
Um previously asked about a breakdown of um your expenditure between radio, TV and online content. Um I think from the last estimate you provided me with an excerpt from the 2025 annual report with some commentary around the line items. Um but there's no commentary around the two biggest line items. Umployee benefits and suppliers. Is there no segment reporting at the ABC that allocates costs between the three distinct um platforms?
Um Senator, increasingly it's becoming blurred. Um, as you would appreciate, audiences are less concerned about whether something is originated from the audio screen or news department, they're just consuming the content, and increasingly that consult content is across all platforms. It is getting more difficult to be able to distinguish between the three areas. In fact, um, you know, I I think it'll be something where we will rally around categories of content going forward, sport, um, First Nations, um, specialist content, um, Australian music, this will be the way that we will um uh set up for the future. Um news has traditionally been the largest component of you know content spend at the ABC. I don't anticipate reducing uh the budget of the news division. I think there are many areas of news that could do with a lot more money. Um and then screen and audio, it would sort of come in that in that order. That would be the traditional way that we would look at it. But going forward, I think you'll find it'll become a lot more blurred and we'll start to talk about genres of content rather than platforms.
So there's no way of distinguishing between the allocation of funds to the increasingly that's going to be more difficult.
Um in terms of the way that we budget, there would certainly be if if you were interested, um, you know, some general breakdowns that we could provide you which would reflect the budget, the way that historically the organisation has approached budgeted cost across the three areas if that was of interest to you.
It would be of interest, please.