By Kelly Burke
October 15, 2008
A raft of the ABC's flagship radio programs have been axed at the same time
the national broadcaster moves to sack dozens of employees elsewhere in the
organisation.
When staff at Radio National were informed this week of the 2009 line-up,
missing from the list were the weekly 8.30am specialist programs The
Religion Report, The Media Report and The Sports Factor.
The long-running documentary program Radio Eye, the science-focused
interview program In Conversation and the social documentary program Street
Stories will also go, while the future of the nightly five-minute
opinion-makers spot Perspective remains under a cloud, as does another
religious-based weekly program, The Ark.
While most staff had been made aware of the changes by Monday, it was left
to the outspoken Radio National presenter Stephen Crittenden to make the
cuts public, in a strongly-worded two-minute preamble to his program The
Religion Report this morning.
"The decision to axe one of this network's most distinctive and important
programs has been approved by the director of ABC Radio, Sue Howard, and it
will condemn Radio National to even greater irrelevance," Crittenden said on
air, adding that his program had put many powerful noses out of joint over
the years. "The ABC's specialist units have been under attack for years, but
the decapitation of the flagship program of the Religion Department
effectively spells the death of religion at the ABC."
The program's podcast facility was subsequently removed from the
broadcaster's website and Crittenden was ordered by ABC management to remove
his opening comments if he wanted his program to be re-broadcast at the
usual time of 8.05pm today.
Crittenden obeyed, later telling the Herald that, after 10 years of
specialisation at the ABC, he was being removed from its "gutted" religion
department.
"I've been told that since [the 2001 US terrorist attacks on] September 11,
reporting on religion has become mainstream. Everyone is doing it so it
doesn't need specialisation any more," he said. "People are appalled."
The head of radio marketing, Warwick Tiernan, said Crittenden's on-air
comments were made independently without the knowledge or approval of
network management.
"The matter is under review," he said.
In a prepared statement, ABC's Radio National manager, Jane Connors, said
the cancellation of programs was part of a shift in resources from on air,
which attracted an audience over the age of 50, to online, which attracted a
much younger audience. Since 2006 the station's monthly average for
downloaded podcasts had more than doubled, to 1.7 million.
"Decisions to wind up programs are never easy, as all of the network's shows
are made with passion and care, and each have their devoted following," Dr
Connors said, adding there would be no job losses as a result of the
changes.
However, more than 30 jobs will go in the ABC's television production
division, with the broadcaster expecting to shed more than 15 per cent of
its television producers as part of the forced redundancies.
A further 17 jobs will be axed in the resources division, which handles
post-production.
The high profile presenter of the short-lived program In Conversation, Robyn
Williams, will retain his weekly Saturday midday spot on The Science Show.
He said the cuts to Radio National were part of the gradual erosion of
serious content on the ABC because of ongoing inadequate funding.
"I don't want to sound like the traditional ABC whinger, but we are broke,"
he said.
Despite a KPMG report arguing the ABC needed an extra $48.1 million for
2008/2009 to sustain its current output, May's federal budget delivered no
funding increase.
Excluding transmission and additional funds related to public access of
digital television services, the ABC received $683.4 million.
The Victorian-based campaign manager for The Friends of the ABC, Glenys
Stradijot, said her organisation was outraged at the axing of the specialist
programs.
"These cuts amount to a major downgrading of Radio National," she said.
"Moves to increase content delivery options must not be at the expense of
traditional services that are needed and are accessible to all Australians."
http://www.smh.com.au:80/articles/2008/10/15/1223750110317.html
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