Sport cuts: "Everyone's" ABC?

Peter Mac

In a further bid to meet budgetary constraints imposed by the 
Howard Government, the ABC management is planning to replace 
state-based coverage of local sporting events with a centralised 
national program broadcast from Sydney.

The move follows cutbacks in other areas such as the elimination 
of children's digital TV programs. The cuts have reduced the 
national broadcaster's ability to relate to viewers on a more 
intimate local level.

The ABC has denied that the new move is a cost-cutting measure. 
An ABC spokesman defended the move saying: "This has the benefit 
of freeing up people and time to provide better coverage."

However, cuts are inevitable. It would be mathematically 
impossible to fit all the local sport information from all the 
states into the existing sports timeslots, and increasing sports 
time allocation is not on the cards. Sport already competes with 
other programs for time.

The ABC's objective is to cut costs, not to increase sports 
program lengths!

The move will inevitably reduce the coverage given for specific 
sports in each state, given that the popularity of different 
events varies from state to state.

The sports cuts mean that commercial broadcasters will step into 
the breach, (if anyone does), thereby eliminating the 
independence of sports coverage that the ABC has traditionally 
provided.

ABC journalists in Adelaide and Melbourne held stop work meetings 
last week. Adelaide staff voiced their objections to "any 
unilateral change which would damage the editorial quality of ABC 
News and ignore the special qualities and needs of each state".

Although ABC management has denied that there would be any job 
losses as a result of the planned centralisation move, the work 
of state-based sports readers would be eliminated. Even if these 
employees were offered alternative work in the ABC system, it is 
inevitable that this would not suit many, who would be forced to 
seek work elsewhere.

This sports centralisation move is symptomatic of the ABC being 
progressively squeezed for funding. If it continues, the process 
will mean that the national broadcaster will eventually become 
no-one's ABC, not "everyone's".