As many as 85 ABC staff on television programs including 7.30 and Foreign Correspondent have been tapped for redundancy just hours after the managing director, Michelle Guthrie, unveiled her plan for streamlining management.

Sources told Guardian Australia some of the staff who were informed they were going to be made redundant included a vision mixer, a lighting director and a technical producer.

The entire field camera department – which films vision and records sound for programs including Landline and Gardening Australia – has also been made redundant. Staff said they had no idea who was going to shoot and catch sound for these programs now. These are all production roles and not management.

Guthrie did indicate in her speech to staff at midday on Tuesday that, separate to the 20% cuts to management, “efficiency measures” would start immediately.

“We’ll be implementing additional efficiency measures in production and support in ABC TV and ABC News,” Guthrie said on Tuesday. “This is part of ongoing work to meet efficiency targets, reduce fixed costs and free up additional funds.

“It’s expected that across these separate activities – reducing management, eliminating duplication and achieving production and support efficiencies – between 150 and 200 staff will leave the ABC by the end of this financial year.”

The efficiencies are coming from cutting at least 36 positions in the television division and 49 in the news division, sources said. Staff who produce the National Press Club television addresses from Canberra have also been targeted.

In her first all-staff address in 10 months in the job, Guthrie said the savings from the job cuts would be reinvested in a $50m content fund, which would start at $20m next financial year.

The fund will be controlled by a new director of audiences, Leisa Bacon, who was previously the director of audience and marketing.

The appointment of the marketing manager to a content role signals ABC content will be more ratings driven. It remains unclear why an additional content fund is needed which is separate to the the existing television and radio commissioning process.

In a message to staff late on Tuesday the director of news, Gaven Morris, who is one of eight executives to head a division in the new structure, said 49 positions in news were being made redundant, largely in production and operational areas.

“It is always extremely hard to lose good, dedicated people, and I acknowledge how difficult this process is for everybody, especially those who are directly affected,” Morris said.

“In the context of the changes in the broader media sector, the reality is that we will continually need to be as efficient as possible and find savings to put back into our content in order to serve our audiences better.”

The secretary of the ABC section of the Community and Public Sector Union, Sinddy Ealy, said the rhetoric about cutting middle management was “a bit of a furphy”.

“Content-making staff in TV and news operations are being tapped on the shoulder today and escorted to quiet offices at the back of the building and told that their jobs will no longer exist on 1 July,” Ealy said. “They are producers, technical operators, people who do things like put the National Press Club to air.”

Ealy also threw doubt on the motives behind the creation of a separate content fund and encouraging staff to submit their ideas.

“I think it’s a Trojan horse for more outsourcing,” she said. “I don’t believe it will work because the ABC is removing the infrastructure for making the content. So if somebody has a great idea to make content if they don’t have the resources to make content that TV content how can it ever get made?”

The ABC’s staff-elected director, Matt Peacock, went public with his support for Guthrie’s plan. Peacock, a senior reporter on 7.30, was elected by a staff ballot to sit on the ABC board while all the other directors are appointed by the government.

“The direction that Michelle is going in of cutting layers of management and increasing resources for program makers is something I 100% support,” Peacock told Guardian Australia.

He said management layers had grown from two to seven since he was a junior reporter and needed to be trimmed. You’d have to be “brainless” to think it wasn’t a good direction to cut management to increase content, Peacock said.

“This is bringing home the bacon; we’ve had some pain and now we have a little bit of gain,” he said.



In its statement of support for Guthrie, the ABC board appeared to acknowledge that the Coalition had cut the ABC’s budget, making the job losses necessary.

“The board acknowledges that within a fixed funding envelope, choices need to be made on allocating resources,” it said. “In transforming the ABC, the priority must be on delivering to audiences.

“The board has established regular reporting on the progress of implementation and will provide governance oversight to ensure that the intended benefits are delivered from this change program.”