ABC Rrlly fights to save TV jobs

ABC rally fights to save TV jobs

The Mecury, 13 December 2012

ABOUT 36 ABC staff and their supporters turned out for a rally yesterday to fight to save local jobs at the public broadcaster.

The ABC has announced plans to close its Hobart television production unit, with the loss of 16-17 jobs.
Labor senator Carol Brown told the rally she was shocked that ABC managing director Mark Scott had not adequately consulted staff over the changes, which she said sold the Tasmanian community short.

"Unfortunately Mark Scott doesn't know the meaning of the word consultation," she said.
"We will not give up until this decision has been reversed."

Federal Greens leader Christine Milne said her party wanted the ABC funded to serve all parts of Australia.

"The ABC has a charter to represent all Australians and all regions and what they are doing [instead] is concentrating production in Sydney and Melbourne."

Source: http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2012/12/13/368227_tasmania-news.html

Senate to launch inquiry

Senate Inquiry into ABC job Cuts

ABC News 24 November 2012

The Senate will launch an inquiry next week into the ABC's decision to cut its Hobart TV production unit.

Earlier this week the ABC's Managing Director Mark Scott announced the national broadcaster would axe the unit, with the loss of 16 jobs.

Tasmanian Labor Senator Catryna Bilyk will move the motion and said the cuts were a betrayal of regional Australia.

"This has happened in Western Australia and in South Australia and the models that have been proposed and used there have not been successful in regards to regional stories," she said.

"There should be a commitment to regional areas in Australia, not just Tasmania but in this case Tasmania - and to the people of Tasmania - to make sure that their stories get told."

Senator Bilyk said her motion would be supported by her Labor colleagues and the Greens.

For information about the inquiry go to: Senate Inquiry Page

ABC Seeks to Close TV production in Tasmania

ABC TV Closes Tas Production Unit

ABC News 20 November 2012

The head of the ABC says television job cuts in Hobart will not mean less Tasmanian content, as the national broadcaster announces it is closing the state's production unit.

Up to 16 jobs will go and the programs Auction Room and Collectors will not be recommissioned.

ABC managing director Mark Scott made the announcement to staff in Hobart this afternoon.

Continued Fears of Job cuts in the ABC

The Mercury - 22 December 2011

CONCERNS are growing that local content and jobs are in serious jeopardy at the ABC.

Community and Public Sector Union regional secretary Paul Blake said there were fears dozens of jobs could be lost if further internal production was not commissioned for the state.

Mr Blake said it was imperative a local football deal was negotiated to ensure the outside broadcast van remained in the state.

The call follows comments made by ABC managing director Mark Scott that internal television production at ABC Tasmania is not guaranteed next year.

An ABC spokeswoman said yesterday ABC TV will also produce 75 per cent of its program hours internally.

However, Mr Blake said that after the loss of Gardening Australia and Collectors in recent years, local production had seriously diminished.

The ABC spokesperson said an internal production team would be maintained in Hobart for Auction Room.
"Subsequent internal program commissioning in Tasmania will depend upon audience response to the Auction Room series."

Tasmanian Friends of the ABC president Melissa Sharp said reducing production in Tasmania could have long-term impacts for the state.

"One point is the loss of jobs in Tasmania. But the other issue is that we will lose the capacity to train up quality production staff. Once that is gone it is very hard to get it back again."

Australian Greens deputy leader Christine Milne yesterday called on the Tasmanian community to fight for a greater commitment from the national broadcaster.

Ms Milne said the loss of ABC production staff could jeopardise the state's growing reputation as a destination for film production.

"In Hobart, we have a great pool of talented, highly skilled and trained TV production staff and it would be wrong if they had to go to the mainland or overseas to get work when the facilities exist here to do the job," Ms Milne said.

"Not only would such a decision be a blow to TV but the local film industry also depends on the maintenance of skilled production capacity and any move to end internal TV production in Tasmania would undermine growth in Tasmania's appeal as a film location," she said.

In the News - ABC

ABC online - 16th December 2011

The head of the ABC is not guaranteeing future internal production of television programs in Tasmania.

ABC managing director, Mark Scott, is in Tasmania to mark the end of the annual Giving Tree charity drive.
Mr Scott has told ABC Local Radio's Leon Compton, the national broadcaster was working to a tight budget.

"Basically we can't afford to do high volumes of programs internally made at every state and territory and capital, that's why if you go to Canberra, if you go to Darwin where you used to be there's no internal television production in Darwin as you know but there is news and current affairs production there as well as other programs made in the territory," he said.

"There's no internal television production scheduled in Perth now."

The future of televised state wide league football matches in Tasmania also remains uncertain
The ABC is seeking a commitment of $100,000 from AFL Tasmania to continue live broadcasts.
ABC managing director, Mark Scott, says the audience in Tasmania is tiny with each broadcast costing the equivalent of $22 per viewer.

Mr Scott has told ABC Local Radio the national broadcaster would be happy to keep broadcasting local football.

"We quite like being able to do it but it's a very comparative expensive exercise and so we're saying to the AFL if these codes are very important, if they're part of a feeder for our big national competition that you've just got a billion dollars in broadcasting rights for then maybe we need to come to some agreement about how we can afford to do these games," he said.

Meanwhile Mr Scott says the ABC is talking about a new historical factual program in Tasmania.

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Crickey - 6th December 2011

And thus after nearly 19 years, Australia's international television broadcasting service is back where it started, embedded with the ABC, after an exotic journey around all points of the media and political compass.

I'll get my pro forma whinge out of the way: the idea of an Australian international television service is risible. It's a complete waste of time, achieving absolutely nothing except enabling footy-starved and otherwise homesick Australians in the region to get their fill of domestic content. $20 million a year, chucked away. No one can demonstrate otherwise. There's not a skerrick of evidence of any positive impact by the television service. Never has been.

And the idea that somehow we could compete with the Brits, the French and the Germans on this stuff is laughable, unless you're prepared to bring serious money to the table. That's why Foreign Affairs never wanted the thing and why Jonathan Shier correctly resisted tendering for the revamped service in 2000.
The idea that the service is core ABC business and therefore should never have been put to tender fundamentally misunderstands what the service is about. Radio Australia is a natural extension of the ABC's domestic function, providing high-quality, comprehensive programming for the Asia-Pacific (particularly the Pacific), that makes RA in some ways the Pacific's own national broadcaster, playing a public interest role that many smaller public broadcasters in the region can never aspire to.

The television service was always about selling Australia, and not so much to our own backyard in the Pacific but to Asia, about projecting an appropriate image of us abroad. It's the broadcasting equivalent of an Australia stall at an expo. There's no obvious reason why the function should rest with the ABC, even if the ABC happened to have the best means of leveraging its existing content into a cost-effective service, and even if the last commercial provider, Kerry Stokes's Seven Network, ran it into the ground in the late 1990s.

In an email to ABC staff, Mark Scott said "this decision will allow the ABC to create a fully converged broadcaster, using a combined audience strategy to pull together the work of Australia Network and Radio Australia. It will enable us to seamlessly provide quality content to international audiences through radio, television, online and mobile services." It's a peculiar thing to say, because as far back as the early part of last decade, the ABC merged Radio Australia and "ABC Asia-Pacific" as it was known then, into a single division, with the goal of creating synergies between the functions and raising concerns within Radio Australia that they might find themselves cross-subsidising the television service. That's where the units remain still, under Murray Green in the international division.

As for the politics, well, it remains impressive that this government has managed to botch the whole thing even worse than the Howard government. It was the Howard government that tried to close Radio Australia, passed the David Hill-created international service to Kerry Stokes and flogged off RA's SW broadcast facilities near Darwin to a right-wing American Christian outlet that proceeded to pump offensive religious propaganda into the region.

Only Alexander Downer's intervention prevented the closure of RA and it was Downer who revived the TV service and got more funding for RA in 2000, something for which the much (and correctly) maligned foreign minister has never received due credit. And the Howard government was able to run a thorough tender process in 2005 that saw the ABC easily beat Sky News.

This mob have overseen a debacle, blame for which will never stray too far from the Foreign Affairs portfolio. What's the cliche -- couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery? Try "couldn't organise a simple two-bidder broadcasting tender". Particularly when there's virtually open war between the prime minister and the foreign minister.

The only thing that could have saved the process was if the government had realised what a waste of money the service is and redirected the $20 million per annum into consolidated revenue or explored options for funding quality journalism domestically. Better yet, they could have given one-tenth of the annual cost to RA to further improve its programming and presence in the region. But that has none of the glamour of an "international television service", something that inexplicably bewitches politicians into abandoning all logic.

Amanda Duthie Departs ABC



The Australian - 8 December 2011

ABC Television's head of arts and entertainment, Amanda Duthie, will depart the public broadcaster to take over the Adelaide Film Festival.

Duthie, who commissioned the series Adam Hills in Gordon Street Tonight, Gruen Planet, Art + Soul and The Chaser's Hamster Wheel, leaves as doubts remain about the ABC's commitment to arts broadcasting.
Duthie dismissed those concerns, pointing to a number of arts series commissioned for next year and the 42-week run of Artscape, among others.

"To say that ABC has shied away from the arts is just not right," she said.

Nevertheless, her role replacing AFF founding chief executive Katrina Sedgwick could have greater impact upon the nation's cultural output given the festival's commissioning fund and continued expansion beyond cinema screens.

"Katrina's been absolutely outstanding, they're mighty big and elegant shoes to fill. It's a jewel of a job and a jewel of a festival," Duthie said.

 

"It's a jewel because it's a boutique festival, because it has the muscle of the commissioning state but it also has that convergence with artists and art forms so things can premiere in a cinema, gallery or another art space. It really aligns with what we've been doing in arts at the ABC."

The festival's investment fund has backed the influential Australian films Samson & Delilah, Snowtown, Mrs Carey's Concert, My Tehran For Sale and Look Both Ways.

Duthie said the festival had a "different influence" on screen culture than the ABC.

"And I don't think the world's as divided (between film and TV) as it once was," she added.

Duthie joined the ABC as commissioning editor and executive producer of arts and entertainment in 2003. She was appointed arts and entertainment boss in 2008.

Duthie said she was proud of the indigenous art series Art + Soul with Hetti Perkins, seeing the Gruen Transfer series progress and seeing out Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton's 25th anniversary this year.
Then there was overseeing The Chaser's lamentable kids' hospital sketch featuring the Make A Realistic Wish Foundation.

"Yep," Duthie sighed. "Commissioning and enabling really risky comedy is obviously one of the hardest things you can do and when you cross a line you can certainly look back and see the line you've crossed. But you have to be brave."

Mark Scotts mixed messages

ABC Attempts Cover up

The Age - 1 December 2012

THE host of ABC television's Gardening Australia program has been told that his services are no longer required.

Stephen Ryan, who fronted the program for three years, says the program's executive producer, Tim Mitchell, visited him at his home with the bad news.

He said that, before leaving, Mr Mitchell handed him a prepared ABC press release to sign - ''if I approved of the contents and in my own time'' - stating that he was ''retiring'' to spend more time at his Mount Macedon nursery.

But nothing could be further from the truth, according to Mr Ryan, who took over from Peter Cundall in November 2008. He said he believed he had been sacked, given his contract wasn't being renewed, and he definitely wasn't retiring.

"Tim was very ill at ease and said it was one of the worst things he'd had to do. The conversation lasted a couple of minutes and then he left. I thought he was coming to talk about the show and plans for next year, so it was a bolt out of the blue and very upsetting.''

He refused to sign the press release because ''that's covering up and I've always been upfront and honest with people.''

Mr Ryan was also told that since his contract was not being renewed to front the gardening television program, he could no longer contribute articles to the Gardening Australia magazine. "They've cut me completely loose,'' he said.

Mr Ryan said he had enjoyed working on the show and had not received any negative feedback about his performance.

But he praised the ABC for choosing, three years ago, an unknown such as himself to replace the popular Cundall.

''I have a lot of respect for the program and I've learnt a lot of skills and everyone was wonderful to work with,'' Mr Ryan said.

Meanwhile, Mr Ryan is looking for an alternative career besides running his rare plants nursery. "I have to have an income so if anyone's looking for someone to be the face on a bag of horse manure I'm your man."

Mr Mitchell was unavailable.

40,000 Sign Lawn Bowls Petition

Nine MSN - 23 November 2011

Federal parliament has received a petition signed by 40,000 lawn bowls followers, after the ABC announced it would discontinue coverage of the sport.

After 30 years of coverage, ABC managing director Mark Scott announced in September lawn bowls would no longer be televised, because audience numbers were "quite small" and it cost $1.3 million a year to cover the sport.

Few things are as calm and ordered as the flat, mown surface of a bowling green, but Mr Scott's announcement drew outrage from politicians from all sides.

Opposition seniors spokeswoman Bronwyn Bishop accused the ABC of abandoning between 200,000 and 500,000 viewers who watch lawn bowls each week.

She and fellow Liberal MP Kelly O'Dwyer launched the nationwide petition to keep bowls, which is played by more than 800,000 Australians, on TV.

Sports Minister Mark Arbib said he welcomed the petition, which was submitted to federal parliament on Wednesday.

He had already raised the issue directly with Mr Scott, to gauge what alternatives there were to cancelling the coverage.

He added the ABC provided a fantastic service for many Australians who devoted Saturday afternoons to supporting Australia's best bowlers "and the 40,000 signatures on the petition highlights this", he said.

Bowls Australia CEO Neil Dalrymple said he was hopeful bowls would continue to be broadcast on free-to-air television.

"It is extremely important to maintain the profile of our sport and being featured on free-to-air television greatly assists this objective," he said.

Bowls Australia president Joe Aarons, Commonwealth Games bronze medallist Barrie Lester and under 25 World Champion Sam Shannahan joined Mrs Bishop and Ms O'Dwyer at the launch of the petition in September.

DIDNT SIGN THE PETITION?

WANT TO HAVE YOUR SAY?

Then send your support to keep Lawn Bowls on ABC by sending an email to your MP: MP Contact List

WANT TO SUPPORT ABC STAFF?

DON’T AGREE WITH CUTS TO ABC ARTS?

The send your support to keep ABC jobs and internally produced programs like Spicks and Specks in the ABC by sending an email to your MP: MP Contact List (the arts)

ABC Stretched Thin - Vacating the viewing public

So instead of using its resources to ensure the devlopment and creation of great programming all year round, ABC cuts jobs, limits the internal experience and skills which have developed over many years. The ABC will only be a shell of its former glory. Nothing but one office to air programs made by private sector producers. This is the death of public broadcasting...

Sydney Morning Herlad - 24 November 2011

SUMMER holidays have come early once again for the ABC's successful Monday-night line-up. One month from Christmas, the fascinating bloc of Four Corners,Media Watch and Q&A has finished for the year, not to return until February.

It's an absence that mystifies viewers of the shows every year and, with each annual departure, collective surprise at the clocking off gives way to disappointment, then annoyance. Put simply: the world doesn't stop turning for three months of the year.

Media Watch, in particular, should be running at full tilt right now. With the federal government's media inquiry holding hearings, issues more than merely pertinent to the persistent quarter-hour hosted by Jonathan Holmes are being raised. The inquiry's head, former Federal Court judge Ray Finkelstein QC, is asking questions that have long been framed by Media Watch and he's often asking them of industry figures who usually aren't open to scrutiny.

It's not as if Monday night is overloaded with competing quality. For a large audience, the remote control was barely needed at the beginning of each week. Q&A, for all its flaws, has no problem generating the content that serves as its oxygen, while the wide-ranging scope of Four Corners means it should rarely lack a suitable topic. The ABC has a knack for going from the sublime to the ridiculous - just watch The Slap and Crownies one after the other on Thursday evening - and this is another worrying example.

It's odd the national broadcaster, which is clearly in expansionary mode with the addition of new channels and a growing online presence, should give the impression it is stinting on its popular core. From the outside it appears the ABC is spreading its resources too widely, trying to do too much with too little. There's little point having multiple channels if the most popular one hibernates through the summer to conserve limited resources.

Although the ABC isn't exposed to claims of waste - most staff on these shows are under contract, which means they're not paid during the hiatus - the network does have form when it comes to being stretched to breaking point at inopportune times. Breaking news, often in the form of natural disasters, does not respect a February-to-November calendar.

ABC News 24 - one of the most prominent additions to the national broadcaster's roster - has been caught out several times in the past 12 months. Having already established a reputation for technical glitches, the fledgling news provider was caught on the hop by the massive Queensland floods of December and January. With many of the ABC's big guns already absent, ABC News 24 appeared to be off the pace and it was the commercial networks that quickly provided comprehensive coverage.

Any lesson had not been processed by March, when the channel had a horror weekend in which planned programming carried on even as the tsunami in Japan was proving devastating in terms of loss of life and property. Even as reports about leaks from the Fukushima nuclear plant began to circulate, there was little response from what was assumed by many commentators to be a skeleton staff.

Whether it's an early goodbye come the end of the year or being caught out unexpectedly when news breaks, there's a perception that the ABC is brittle, that it doesn't have enough money for what it is trying to do. The traditional response has been to lament the lack of funding but ABC managing director Mark Scott has not gone unheard in Canberra in recent years, which means the ambition has to be questioned.

The one thing the ABC has, which no budget can replace, is the Australian public's trust. As much as second-guessing the network's choices is an enduring pursuit, there's a high level of institutional respect that surfaces whenever there are problems. ABC Radio, for example, plays a crucial role during bushfire season.

If the ABC keeps finishing some of its best programming too early, or can't accommodate breaking news on a news channel, then the public's doubts will erode a respect that's been forged over decades.