Mr Morris conceded there had been "some parts of the community that we don't serve as well as we could be". Fixing this would involve a closer look at the way stories are commissioned as well as the topics covered, with transport and hospitals likely to be given closer attention. Two-thirds of Sydney's expected 1.3 million population growth by 2030 will be located west of Parramatta and similar trends are being seen across the country. Our budgets have been going down so we can't invest into more audiences ... we've got to appeal to a broader cross-section of Australia. ABC head of news Gaven Morris. People living in Sydney's west will be a focus for Mr Morris, along with Melbourne's east, Brisbane's south and Perth's south west, and regional cities like Newcastle and Geelong. "Viewers are typically older Australians and, while we love those audiences and want to retain them as much as we can, we do need to look at an audience growth strategy," he said.

"Year-on-year our television audiences are declining. Radio audiences are remaining relatively [static] but over time will decline." The latest OzTam data shows the average age of Seven West Media's audience in the 6pm to 10.30pm timeslot is 53 in the capital cities, Nine's is 51 and Network Ten – which focuses on younger audiences – has an average age of 47. Not only have these ages risen by one year since 2018 but the broadcasters have had ongoing declines in linear TV viewership year-on-year and are looking at streaming and other digital options to grow their audiences. There has also been growing concern among media executives and academics that the average person views the news media as out of touch with their lives. The Digital News Report 2019, released by the University of Canberra in June, asked Australians whether the news was relevant to them and 28 per cent said it was not. This was the second-worst result of five English-speaking countries surveyed.

Loading Another concern among global media commentators is that journalists are increasingly from similar backgrounds, often described as an "elite" from top schools, reducing the diversity of views. Mr Morris said that the more the ABC focused on broader areas "the more we'll be better at recruiting from parts of Australia we haven't always recruited from". This push might irritate commercial free-to-air broadcasters but Mr Morris emphasised he was not looking to win ratings but to fulfil charter requirements of relevance. "I don't see us getting into genres and content the ABC hasn't traditionally been in. I don't see us trying to compete with commercial media," he said.