THE ABC will close Adelaide’s TV production studio in Collinswood, slashing at least 37 local jobs and hundreds more elsewhere around the nation, after the Federal Government cut its budget.

Port Augusta’s radio studio will also be shut down, potentially cutting local content to one of South Australia’s most important northern outposts.

This morning Adelaide staff were addressed via videolink by managing director Mark Scott, who confirmed the cuts.

“We anticipate that more than 400 people — close to 10 per cent of our ongoing workforce — face potential redundancy as we adjust our activities over coming months,” Mr Scott said in a statement.

“We regard the changes as vital to securing the long-term health of the organisation but I acknowledge that is no comfort to those who will lose their positions.”

Adelaide is one of the last ABC offices to retain internal TV production capacity.

A two-part documentary on the 40th anniversary of Countdown, Countdown: Do Yourself A Favour, was produced by the ABC’s SA unit, as was the iView and ABC2 series The Daters, which followed the fortunes of six young people looking for love. Other high-profile shows produced by the ABC in Adelaide include Po’s Kitchen, The Cook & The Chef and Behind The News.

It is still unclear how many South Australians will lose their jobs.

The Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) estimated last week that in excess of 150 jobs are at risk in South Australia..

The ABC news website today said 37 people were expected to lose their jobs at the ABC building in Collinswood, after 55 years of production there.

But CPSU’s Sarah Hunt said TV production cuts alone would mean the loss of 50-60 jobs, and that excludes positions lost in back-office and radio functions.

“This is going to be a very tough day for staff at the ABC, many will be losing their jobs and we will be on hand to help them through this difficult time.”

In an email sent to staff, Mr Scott blamed the “economics of the television sector” for the shutting down of Adelaide TV production.

“It is more economically efficient to base production (outside news and current affairs) in Sydney and Melbourne,” he said.

Mr Scott announced that the state-based 7.30 local current affairs programs would be cut across the country.

The South Australian edition — hosted by Simon Royal and airing on Friday nights — typically attracts more viewers in Adelaide than the national version.

Mr Scott also confirmed that Port Augusta’s radio post would be closed alongside four others elsewhere in the country.

Although Mr Scott claimed there would be “no content implications” in regional areas, the loss of local staff is likely to degrade the quality of local content.

He said that “these sites need continual maintenance” and “we need to be responsible in how we allocate resources and maintaining these sites is not best practice.”

Mr Scott is scheduled to visit ABC offices around the country in coming weeks to personally answer questions from staff.

“The message I will convey, both internally and externally, over the next few weeks is that the ABC cannot stand still and run the risk of becoming less relevant and compelling to this and future generations,” he said.

Coalition Education Minister and Member for Sturt Christopher Pyne said he was “disgusted” that ABC TV production would not survive outside Sydney and Melbourne as a result of this decision.

“I am deeply disappointed in the ABC’s announcement today about the closure of South Australia’s production facilities and the closure of a regional office in Port Augusta,” he said.

“This will mean a loss of talent and capacity in South Australia that will be irreplaceable.”

A report into the opportunities for financial savings at the ABC and SBS was submitted to Mr Pyne and his Cabinet colleagues earlier this year before the decision was made by the government to cut the ABC budget by $254 million over the next five years.

Angry reaction to cuts

THE Abbott government is treating “everyone like mugs” when it argues its not actually making any cuts to ABC or the SBS, Labor says.

The prime minister’s election eve promise to make “no cuts to the ABC or SBS” continues to hamper his government’s move to slash $254 million from the ABC’s budget over five years.

SBS has also been asked to find $53 million in savings over the same period.

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann argues the measures are “not cuts”, rather “efficiency dividends”, while Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull earlier this week said he assumes Mr Abbott meant there would be no “cuts with the intent of reducing ABC services”.

Senior Labor frontbencher Penny Wong labelled the coalition’s attempts to pass the blame as extraordinary.

“They’re treating everyone like mugs,” she said.

“He is a prime minister who lied to the Australian people and then is prepared to be completely brazen about it.”

Trade Minister Andrew Robb on Sunday reinforced his party’s line by arguing that the ABC, as a public service, should not be immune from the government’s efforts to wind back the debt.

“The ABC, which has been a protected species for a long time, has to make its share and its contribution,” he told Sky News.

Mr Robb’s comments come as protesters prepare rallied on the weekend as part of a week-long Our Stories Our Future Our ABC, campaign.

More than 3000 people rallied in Sydney on Saturday and federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten attended Sunday’s rally in Melbourne.

The Greens say the Abbott government has misjudged the public mood on cuts to the ABC and SBS.

Greens communications spokesman Senator Scott Ludlam and Greens Federal MP Adam Bandt have spoken ahead of the Save The ABC rally in Melbourne’s CBD.

“There is no doubt at all that the Abbott government has profoundly misjudged the popular mood on this issue,” Senator Ludlam told reporters.

“There is a tiny handful of extremists in the Abbott government who believe we should breakup, privatise or just cut public broadcasting to pieces, and they are completely at odds with popular opinion.

Mr Bandt said the prime minister was feeling pressure over the issue.

“Tony Abbott if you want to relieve the pressure you’re under the answer is as simple as A.B.C. — abide by commitments,” Mr Bandt said.

Mark Scott’s Full Email to Staff

“Dear Colleagues,

I have just completed a presentation to staff in ABC offices around the country, outlining a range of measures we propose to implement over the next few years. The initiatives are designed to reposition the ABC for its current and future challenges and to maintain a clear focus on our audience strategy and Charter obligations. I am aware that some of you may not have caught the address or are seeking further detail. This email is designed to provide more information about our plans. It sits alongside a statement released today by the ABC Board.

In charting this new course, my thoughts go out firstly to those who face losing their jobs. As other companies in the media sector have found, structural change can have painful personal consequences. We anticipate that more than 400 people — close to 10 per cent of our ongoing workforce — face redundancy as we adjust our activities. We regard the changes as vital to securing the long-term health of the organisation but I acknowledge that is no comfort to those who may lose their positions.

My thanks go to everyone at the ABC for the patience, discipline and application they have displayed over a testing period. We have had to deal with the reality of cuts in the May budget, the speculation over the departmental study into the efficiency of the public broadcasters and the uncertainty surrounding the Government’s “down payment” strategy on further cuts. Like any responsible organisation, we have used our time constructively — taking heed of the departmental study and other inputs — to assess our activities and processes and to recalibrate on programming.

We have had to wait for clarity on funding to complete the task.

The proposals announced today form an integrated package: they are a whole-of-ABC response to our funding issues and our audience strategy. They recognise that programming cannot stay frozen and that our content divisions must regularly update their strategies and schedules; that audience dynamics drive reinvestment decisions and that repositioning necessitates tough decision-making and execution.

Change is never easy for an institution that has so many stakeholders with a passionate interest in its work. But change is now a media industry constant and the one guarantee I can offer you is that change will remain a reality for the ABC. What I can say with confidence is that the resilience of the ABC and the professionalism of the staff will help build a stronger organisation, better-equipped to meet the audience challenges of the present and the future.

ABC Funding

The Government has confirmed that, in addition to the May 2014 budget cut of $120 million, the ABC budget will be cut from July 2015 by a further $207 million over four years. The schedule of cuts outlined by the Government acknowledges that extracting efficiencies incurs a big upfront liability for the ABC in the form of redundancies and early transitional costs.

We must fund these costs from our current funding allocation and asset base. Because the cuts are back-end loaded, in the latter years the accumulated impact to the ABC is over eight per cent a year. We face immediate work to meet the 2016-17 ask of more than $60 million.

This target requires concerted, disciplined action to meet our twin challenges. We must make significant savings to ensure that our content is largely protected from external funding shocks. In a changing media landscape, we must also closely scrutinise our programming, shifting investment to strengthen our connection to audiences.

Efficiency Savings

Delivering efficiencies is not a new concept for the ABC. It is a legal responsibility of the ABC Board “to ensure the functions of the Corporation are performed efficiently and with the maximum benefit to the people of Australia”. We have applied ourselves diligently to the task over the years.

We have used our efficiency savings to finance key initiatives like ABC News24 and iview. These initiatives have been critical to the development and relevance of the ABC at a time of intense competition in the media sector. In considering efficiencies, it is important to appreciate that:

* New technology changes what we can do and how

* It is a fast-changing media market place; and

* We need to ensure that our investments deliver value for money.

Our aim in delivering the savings required by the Federal Government is to focus primarily on overheads and back-office functions. But, as I have stressed repeatedly over the past few months, there is no simple quarantining formula for cost-cutting. The very nature of the media business means that some savings inevitably impact content. The ABC must also focus on where and how it can best add value in its processes and content creation.

We believe there are compelling business reasons to:

* Close our Adelaide television production studio and wind down remaining television production in smaller states. The economics of the television sector make it difficult to maintain small-scale operations. It is more economically efficient to base production (outside news and current affairs) in Sydney and Melbourne. TV’s aim is to work with the independent sector on programming that better reflects local diversity. To demonstrate accountability, the ABC will deliver detailed annual reports on its local production, including dollars invested and programs made.

* Rationalise our television outside broadcast vans and scale back our sports involvement. The ABC is the only broadcaster maintaining its own outside broadcast fleet. With the ABC facing declining audience interest in local sport competitions and some codes chasing commercial opportunities, ABC Television is revising its sports strategy to ensure the most cost-efficient use of resources and optimal audience impact. ABC Television will be providing more detail on its revised sports strategy.

* Shut five of our very small regional radio posts in Wagin, Morwell, Gladstone, Port Augusta and Nowra. These sites need continual maintenance, the number of staff impacted is minimal and there are no content implications. The ABC will always have and need a strong regional footprint. But we need to be responsible in how we allocate resources and maintaining these sites is not best practice.

Today, we are proposing a range of efficiency measures that will transform the operational base of the ABC and provide the bulk of the savings that the Federal Government has imposed. There are more than 40 proposals that go to our processes and systems, our contracts with key suppliers and our infrastructure. They are designed to deliver savings with minimal adverse cost impact — scooping up the benefits of collaboration, harnessing technology, modernising the business and better resource allocation.

The proposals address:

* Our procurement. We will systematically review key contracts to extract efficiencies and explore joint purchasing arrangements with our colleagues at SBS.

* Our property holdings. We are exploring various options to get savings out of our portfolio. As a first step we will plan for the sale of Lanceley Place in Sydney as well as closing five of our smallest regional radio stations that operate as virtual outposts.

* Our systems and processes. We will streamline and automate our rostering, performance and other HR paper-based systems, easing bureaucratic demands on staff.

* Key tasks like our switchboard and mail rooms. We will centralise the former and reorganise the latter to yield savings;

* Our audience and marketing strategies. The Audience and Marketing Division, which was centralised in March, will find efficiencies by aligning more closely with priority content and brand initiatives.

We also want to strip back our management layers. Management comprises more than 10 per cent of the proposed redundancies. In mid-2015, we propose dismantling the State and Territory Director structure and looking at new ways of handling local administrative and stakeholder responsibilities.

Audience at the centre

Competition in the media space is intensifying and audiences are asserting their power. The ABC needs to meet the surging audience demand for online and mobile services while, at the same time, securing and strengthening our grip in the traditional content areas. We must be the home of Australian stories and conversations across all platforms.

Structural change can help us in this regard, ensuring we better harness our skills, people and strategies for the benefit of current and future audiences.

We propose replacing ABC Innovation with a new digital division, ABC Digital Network, with the aim of prioritising our online and mobile expenditure. The new division would bring our digital designers, user experience specialists, digital project managers and developers together to maximise our investment in this competitive audience space. It would ensure we are better placed to identify audience trends and respond to them with new and enhanced products and services, developed with a whole-of-ABC mindset and discipline.

ABC Digital Network is the key to improving the skills of our digital specialists and unlocking a better audience experience: it means better search, single sign-on, better recommendations, localisation, segmentation, profiling and navigation. These areas are vital to keeping our audiences connected and our services relevant.

We are also planning a new Regional Division, recognising that, with new digital technologies and better organisation, we can be smarter and more focused in our approach to rural and regional audiences. The new division would bring together regional radio and news staff and look afresh at how we best deploy our knowledge, skills and technology.

We will advertise internally for a new director and the position will be located outside Sydney and Melbourne. We have committed to a period of consultation with staff and to engagement with regional communities in crafting the new division. We will maintain our level of content investment while acknowledging that in this new environment, not everything should or will remain as it has been.

As part of our structural change, we propose transferring responsibility for News Radio from ABC Radio to ABC News. A reshaped Radio Division would then consist of the local radio stations in the capital cities, Radio National, Classic FM and triple j, offering strong audience focus through both national and localised programming. Michael Mason, who has been acting head of Radio for some months, will be the new Director of Radio. His long leadership experience across many of the Radio networks makes him perfectly qualified for the job.

Content reinvestment

The budget cuts represent a real opportunity cost for the ABC. The efficiency savings we normally used to finance our digital reinvestment are now being returned to the Government’s general revenue. The reinvestment task cannot simply stop to meet federal budgetary demands. With competition intensifying and audiences growing more demanding and fickle, we cannot afford to abandon our efforts to invest in the content and services our listeners, viewers and readers want.

We lag behind other media in terms of our digital reach and penetration. We need to make up ground quickly in terms of the money we devote to reinvestment.

Broadcasting is not and never has been a static industry. Each year, our content divisions sit down to map out their plans, taking into account audience trends, technological developments, budgets, and the tactics of others in their respective markets. Programs are changed, cancelled and replaced.

Staff are reassigned, resources reallocated. This is part of the normal cycle of business.

Recently, ABC TV announced a raft of exciting new projects for 2015, building on their quality output across three channels. Radio are about to finalise their schedules for next year and will maintain their depth and range of content to loyal audiences across national networks and local radio. ABC News will continue to display cross-platform leadership in news and current affairs. ABC International is delivering for its audiences in the Pacific and Asia. Online, the ABC will continue to show flair, creativity and innovation.

But, in responding to the audience challenge, the divisions have identified programming savings that they can reinvest in new content priorities. We have set up an investment fund that will progressively ramp up to $20 million over the next few years.

I need to stress this: there will be programming changes, but money saved will be reinvested back into programming.

Programming savings

In ABC TV, as I flagged earlier, we propose ceasing television production in the smaller states and winding back our TV sport production.

ABC News has proposed launching a new, national end-of-week edition of 7.30, replacing the state editions, and delivering more state coverage throughout the week across all platforms. I acknowledge there is a level of debate around this proposal, but we want to focus on delivering more local news and analysis whenever it happens during the day, rather than confining it to Friday nights. Lateline will shift to a new more time-friendly fixed slot on ABC News24 (while also airing on ABC TV in 2015) where it can build the audience it deserves.

We propose readjusting the shape of our foreign bureaux but will continue to recognise the importance of our investment in foreign coverage at time of 24/7 news demand and the challenges posed by convergence. As part of this, we will open a new post in Beirut to extend our coverage of the Middle East. Other measures include creating a new National Business Team to boost business and finance coverage across all platforms and better tailoring radio news output to match audience needs. ABC News will outline the more specific proposed changes.

ABC Radio plans to cut back on the number of concerts recorded on Classic FM. This is a prudent efficiency measure that still ensures a quality service for the Classic audience. There would be programming changes and staff cuts in Radio National and Local Radio.

The changes to Radio National aim to reshape the structure and flow of programming across the middle of the day and to rethink our delivery of documentary content. However, the majority of proposed radio savings are in the administration and management areas. The creation of a Regional Division will impact on work flows for Local Radio and the delivery of digital services across Australia. ABC Radio will provide a more detailed briefing to staff on these and other proposed changes.

The need for digital reinvestment does not preclude the search for audience or workplace efficiencies in that area. We are rationalising our websites, with the goal of closing down more than 100 and consolidating content into websites that generate the most traffic, like ABC News, to present our stories to wider audiences.

The reinvestment fund priorities

The creation of ABC Digital Network will ensure we mobilise our resources to deliver a better audience experience in online and mobile — factors that are vital to success in this competitive market.

That is the first of our reinvestment priorities with other initiatives to be rolled out as savings become available. Our focus will be on priority areas of News, children’s, triple j and iview and will include:

* The upgrading of our innovative catch-up TV service. iview has become an important platform for viewers of every age. We will enrich the audience experience with fast-feature development, improved personalisation, 24-hour support, capacity for audience recommendations and the development of stand-alone content.

* Exploring the potential for new video streaming and transaction-based services.

* New investment in News Digital, including extending our capacity for breaking and rolling news coverage to online and mobile audiences and building digital newsgathering skills within our metropolitan newsrooms and our current affairs and international teams.

* The extension of radio streaming to regional areas and the development of the personalised radio player that enables listeners to draw in content from across the ABC’s array of services and to access it in one location.

The ABC expects that new specialist jobs, funded by our programming changes, will be created across the ABC as we roll out these new digital initiatives.

Next stage

The ABC has endeavoured to speak to every member of staff directly affected by these proposals and we will embark on a process of consultation with staff and unions about the proposed changes.

Some initiatives are still in the planning stage — they will be rolled out as we develop a full understanding of the savings potential and risks. This means it is difficult, at this stage, to provide absolute precision on the size and impact of cuts. Nor can we provide a definite number on redundancies. With more than 40 separate proposals to cut overheads and backroom costs, we need time to work through the processes. However, we expect the staff cuts will be significant.

They are likely to exceed 400 over the next few years — close to 10 per cent of our ongoing staff numbers as we consult, bed down the initiatives and seek to realise the savings.

These are challenging times, but our responsibility is to recognise the internal and external realities and confront them. We need to manage our budget cuts in a way that best protects audiences. But we also need to realise there is an opportunity cost of the Government taking back the money that we normally use to meet our reinvestment priorities.

Our efficiency drive requires the co-operation, involvement and sacrifice of every division. I will visit state and territory branches over the next two weeks to talk personally to workers there. The message I will convey, both internally and externally, over the next few weeks is that the ABC cannot stand still and run the risk of becoming less relevant and compelling to this and future generations.

What we’ve proposed today is in the best interests of the ABC and its many stakeholders. It is designed to position the organisation for the future; to ensure its pivotal place as the home of Australian stories and conversations.

Working together, we can be confident in our ability to see through these changes and to build a stronger ABC.”

- Mark Scott