Dr Rhonda Jolly
Budget measures
The new triennial funding agreement for the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) was announced in the 2016–17 Budget. The ABC is
to receive revenue of $3.1 billion in base operating funding over the three
years to 2018–19.[1]
In addition to this funding, the Budget extends a 2013–14
Budget measure, which was provided to support ABC local news and current
affairs services, particularly those services outside capital cities, for three
years from 2016–17.[2] Funding over this period will
be $41.4 million.[3] Previous funding for this
measure was $67.6 million over four years, plus $1.8 million for capital
expenses.[4]
Base funding for Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) is also
included in the Portfolio Budget Statements. The broadcaster will receive
$271.9 million in 2016–17, $269.8 million in 2017–18 and $272.4 million in
2018–19.[5]
An additional Budget measure provides funding to SBS
following a $28.5 million funding cut imposed in the 2015–16 Budget in
anticipation of the passage of legislation to allow the broadcaster to increase
revenues raised by the sale of additional advertising and sponsorship.[6]
This legislation was not passed and in the 2015–16 Additional Estimates SBS
received an additional $4.1 million in compensation.[7]
The Budget has provided a further $6.9 million for the 2016–17 financial year
only, which may indicate that the Government is contemplating re-introducing
legislation intended to increase advertising on SBS. At the same time, the Save
Our SBS group has said that it understands that for each future year the additional
advertising legislation is not introduced into law the Coalition Government
will, on a year-by-year basis, give SBS compensatory funding.[8]
A further measure gives additional funding of $8.3 million
over three years from 2016–17 to SBS to maintain the quality and delivery of
its television, radio and online services—what this budget has labelled the SBS
funding adequacy program.[9]
Reaction
The ABC noted in its response to the Budget that it will seek to maintain as many of its news initiatives as possible
and it will focus on delivering services to Australians in regional and
outer-suburban areas. It has added, however, that ‘there will necessarily be
some changes to staffing and programming’ in line with what it says is a
reduced allocation of funding.[10] The online journal Crikey
has noted this point and revealed that the new managing director of the
ABC, Michelle Guthrie, has confirmed that the need to find savings will
inevitably result in job losses.[11]
SBS has welcomed its additional $15.1
million in funding in the 2016 Budget, on top of its base funding allocation over
the next three years. An SBS media release states that the broadcaster
considers the Budget recognises the value of SBS’s role in ‘collective efforts
to promote social cohesion, and the changing media landscape in which SBS
operates’.[12]
The Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance
(MEAA) considers public broadcasting has been ‘shortchanged’ in this Budget.[13]
With regards to the ABC in particular, the MEAA argues that while base funding
to the ABC has been maintained, there has been nothing done to restore previous
‘damage’ done in recent Budgets. It stresses also that the special funding measure
for news services provides less funding with expectations that existing
services can continue to be delivered.[14]
Andrew Dodd from the Swinburne University of
Technology commented on the reduction in funding for news services, noting that
the ABC’s Enhanced Newsgathering Program received $20.2
million in the last financial year of the Budget measure as introduced in
2013–14 compared with the funding now allocated for three years. However, according
to Associate Professor Dodd, the ABC ‘can take some comfort from the fact that
it’s not in the government’s sights for another ideologically driven round of
major cuts’.[15]
Friends of the ABC labelled the Budget cuts as ‘severe’ and
its National Spokesperson, Ranald Macdonald believed the broadcaster was
suffering a ‘death by a thousand cuts’.[16]
[1].
Australian Government, Budget
measures: budget paper no. 2: 2016–17, 2016, p. 70.
[2].
Australian Government, Budget
measures: budget paper no. 2: 2013–14, 2014, pp. 98–106.
[3].
Budget paper no. 2: 2016–17, p. 70, op. cit.
[4].
Budget paper no. 2: 2013–14, op. cit.
[5].
Australian Government, Portfolio
budget statements 2016–17: budget related paper no. 1.3: Communications and
Arts Portfolio, p. 318.
[6].
Communications Legislation Amendment (SBS Advertising Flexibility and
Other Measures) Bill 2015
[7].
Australian Government, Portfolio
Additional Estimates Statements 2015-16: Communications and the Arts Portfolio,
p. 53.
[8].
Save Our SBS, SBS
funding business as usual, media release, 3 May 2016.
[9].
Portfolio budget statements 2016–17, Communications and Arts Portfolio,
p. 323, op. cit.
[10].
Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), ABC 2016-2019 funding, media release, 3
May 2016.
[11].
C Knowlton, ABC cuts to come from budget?, Crikey, 4 May
2016.
[12].
Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), Australian
audiences to benefit from SBS’s triennial funding outcome, media
release, 3 May 2016.
[13].
Media, Arts and Entertainment Alliance, Budget 2016: arts and public broadcasting funding crisis continues as
government maintains damaging course, media
release, 3 May 2016.
[14].
Ibid. The Budget cuts referred to by the MEAA included the 2014
Budget cuts for base funding through a one per cent efficiency saving for each
broadcaster which amounted to approximately $35.5 million for the ABC and
$8.0 million for SBS.
[15].
Federal budget 2016: political experts react, The
Conversation, 3 May 2016.
[16].
ABC Friends National, $50m
Budget cuts over 3 years’, media release, 3 May 2016.
All online articles accessed May 2016.
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