Response from ABC Chair Kim Williams to today’s News Corporation article – The article by Stephen Drill in today’s News Corporation mastheads (“ABC costs Aussies more than a Netflix subscription as lavish $1.1 billion dollar budget revealed”) is an inaccurate, unbalanced and agenda-driven attack on the ABC.
Key claims were never put to the ABC and little of the response the ABC gave was quoted.
Mr Drill’s main claims, that “the ABC costs each Australian household more than the price of a Netflix subscription” and that “the broadcaster fails to reach 10.6 million Australians”, do not stand up to scrutiny.
On a monthly basis the ABC reaches around 80% of Australians. Annually, fewer than 3% of Australians don’t use the ABC. Using Mr Drill’s methodology, an ad-free Netflix service costs households more than double the ABC per month.
In any event, the comparison is meaningless. Netflix is a commercial entertainment video service. Services the ABC provides include, but aren’t limited to:
- A vital Emergency Broadcasting service that at times saves people’s property and even their lives. So far this financial year the ABC’s EB service has covered 460 emergency events. In one week this month we broadcast 76.5 hours of dedicated emergency radio programming just on the north Queensland floods
- Australia’s most trusted news service on TV, radio and online, including continuous 24-hour news on ABC NEWS TV channel, NewsRadio the ABC NEWS web and app
- Metro and regional news services operating from 67 locations across the country (10 in capital cities, 56 regional locations and one outer-suburban location). An estimated 1.4 million regional Australians listen to ABC Local Radio every week
- International bureaus in 10 locations as well as additional dedicated Pacific reporters
- High quality, locally made and freely available Australian broadcast and streamed drama and entertainment. This month the ABC won 13 AACTA awards for screen excellence
- Australia’s most-watched kids content, specialist educational content that is aligned to the curriculum and dedicated news content for young people from Behind The News and BTN High
- International services that make ABC storytelling available on TV, radio and online worldwide, with a focus on our region. The ABC Australia TV service has a monthly viewership across the Asia-Pacific of at least 10.5 million people and is carried by more than 100 broadcast partners.
Some relevant facts on the ABC’s budget:
- In the last decade, the ABC’s operating revenue from government has fallen by 13.7% in real terms – an annual reduction of $150 million.
- Funding the ABC represents a tiny proportion of the federal government budget — and it has been getting smaller. Just this century the ABC has declined from an overall share of Commonwealth outlays of 0.31% in 2000-01 to just 0.13% in today’s outlays.
- Currently, Australia invests around 40% less per person in public broadcasting than the average for a comparable set of 20 OECD democracies.
The ABC provided Mr Drill with these content and audience highlights from the last 12 months, none of which he used:
- The ABC Network was the No 1 ranked television broadcaster in 2023–24 with a reach of 36.4%, or 6.6 million people, across the five-city metro population.
- In 2023–24, ABC News and Current Affairs on ABC TV and ABC News channel reached 5.2 million average weekly metro and regional viewers.
- ABC NEWS is Australia’s No 2 digital news publisher. The ABC’s December audience was 11.75 million people with an average read time of 31 minutes per person.
- ABC News Top Stories is Australia’s No 1 news podcast and the ABC was overall the No 3 most listened to publisher in the Triton Podcast Ranker. The ABC features more titles in the Top 200 than any other publisher.
- ABC NEWS is the No 1 Australian news provider across all social media by followers. The ABC is currently No 1 on Facebook and Instagram and No 3 on TikTok and YouTube. ABC Instagram surpassed 1 million followers last year and the YouTube ABC NEWS In-depth channel is approaching 2 million subscribers.
- ABC iview was the number one ranked BVOD service in 2023-24 based on on-demand minutes, with a 34% share of on-demand minutes across the year.
- ABC Radio reached an estimated 4.77 million people each week in the five capital cities.
- The ABC is the No 1 digital live streaming audio network, with a 25.6% share of live radio streaming.
- ABC YouTube channels averaged 60 million monthly views.
Many of Mr Drill’s other claims are misleading or lack essential information that would put them in proper context for his readers. These include:
Mr Drill’s examples of ABC “waste” include launching an improved ABC NEWS website and app with added features and functionality for all users, opening the ABC Parramatta office, covering the US Presidential election, covering the Garma Festival, providing a fact checking service and advertising to let audiences know what content and services are available.
We don’t believe any of these is a “waste”. As has been publicly stated, the opening of ABC Parramatta and refurbishment of the Ultimo office has been entirely funded through the sale of former property in Artarmon on Sydney’s north shore and by leasing out space in the Ultimo head office.The ABC has a very small advertising budget, with an estimated 2.5% share of expenditure. Major streamers such as Stan and Amazon Prime have between 10 and 20 times the marketing spend of ABC iview.
“The ABC has refused to reveal how much incoming boss Hugh Marks will be paid just weeks ahead of his start date, saying it would be listed in next year’s annual report.”
As Mr Drill was told, the salary range for the ABC Managing Director is set by the Remuneration Tribunal, not the ABC. It is also published in the ABC annual report. ABC disclosure requirements are in line with all Commonwealth agencies.
“The ABC has confirmed it paid thousands to put up Bruce McAvaney in Paris while he was covering the Olympics on radio after he was snubbed by Nine, the official TV broadcaster.”
Bruce McAvaney, an exceptional sports broadcaster, was not in Paris, he called the Paris Olympics with our team in Sydney. The ABC broadcast the Olympics across regional and remote Australia as well as a number of capital city ABC stations, including Adelaide, to ensure every Australian could access live audio broadcasts.
Media Release – ABC
Link to ABC iview HERE
TV Central ABC content HERE
Response from ABC Chair Kim Williams to today’s News Corporation article
