Screen producer Australia has cast support behind ABC’s plea for increased funding, claiming that the quality of cultural production in Australia’s screen content is directly related to the strength of public broadcasters.
In a speech to the Melbourne Press Club in early April, ABC Chairman Kim Williams said that despite the increase in 2024, ABC funding was “$150 million less than 2013.”
“In 2000, ABC funds accounted for 0.31% of federal spending.
“Today, it’s about 0.12% and we’re being asked to do more with it.”
Opposition leader Peter Dutton foresaw an ABC efficiency review if elected. He couldn’t answer when he was asked by 2GB Ben Fordham to name his favorite ABC journalist in the first week of the campaign.
He instead states: “Frankly, I think there are people who are just partisan players and people watch it on TV screens every night, and ABC uses taxpayer money.
“No one at ABC receives a $1 salary without being funded by Australian taxpayers, and as I said before, if we find waste at ABC, we won’t support it.
The SPA is supporting calls for additional funding to ABC and fellow public broadcaster SBS, as long as this is tied to fair commissioning practices.
CEO Matthew Deaner said the commissioning contracts offered by broadcasters to producers over the past year went from “bad to bad” to “unfair and unsustainable.”
“While ABC’s overall financial investment in each program has stagnated and has declined significantly in many cases, ABC is leveraging more rights from producers for this reduced investment, which will allow members to run sustainable businesses and continue to produce ongoing quality and scale work.
“This is the product of the underlying financial pressures in which the ABC is, and if this is not checked, the outcome is an insidious cycle of harming our country’s ability to produce its own cultural production.”
