The Russell Balding management at the ABC is continuing its pattern of perverse decision making.
The axing of George Negus Tonight and the forced re-location of Gardening Australia production from Hobart to Melbourne has again raised concerns about political interference via funding mechanisms. The program changes were said by the managing director to be based on sound editorial reasoning, rejecting concerns that it was a manipulation of National Interest Initiative money ($17 million a year) granted to the ABC in the May 2001 Budget.
Indeed, there may be no direct link but how and where the ABC spends its money is now highly politicised.
While asserting an editorial imperative in the recent program changes, as with many of Balding’s statements, the other fork of the tongue was immediately apparent: ‘The ABC has made its programming decision based on sound editorial reasoning. It is designed to make more effective use of ABC resources and deliver an increase in television production to South Australia, Queensland, Tasmania and Western Australia. The source of funding has nothing whatsoever to do with the decision’.
The MD did not go on to explain the ‘sound editorial reasons’ for the program changes but highlighted the regional resource re-allocation which came with them.
The National Interest Initiative (NII) was a funding idea put up by former MD Jonathan Shier in December 2000 after yet another rejection of the ABC Board’s triennial funding submission.
Shier went back for more and the Board wrapped the ‘ask’ in a politically attractive plan which appealed to the Howard Government’s then vulnerability in marginal regional seats — in particular more regional services (announced before the 2001 election with great fanfare in regional electorates) as well as business and finance.
Fifty new regional radio program makers and four new regional radio stations as well as regional TV, radio and online initiatives were progressively announced before the 2001 election with the process seen by many appropriately cynical observers as the ABC happily playing its part in the Howard Government’s marginal regional seats strategy.
While there is a strong case for the ABC rebuilding its regional bridges to audiences this should be done for the right broadcasting reasons and not to please the incumbent government.
NII is, in effect, ‘tied’ funding. Although the ABC Board denies this definition, the Board is bound to honour its stated reasons for wanting a separate allocation for designated content. It must be seen by the government to deliver that content.
After the rejection of the ABC Board’s triennial funding submission in 2003, the Donald McDonald ABC Board complained there was no more fat to cut and scrapped two digital channels Kids and Fly, shaved advertising and program budgets across the board, axed Behind the News and the cadet journalist intake.
As a Board strategy it badly misfired with our audiences with many asking why other less worthy programming was not scrapped first. The Behind the News decision was seen as particularly perverse when it was reported that its production costs were substantially defrayed by copyright licence fees of more than $1million received from educational institutions across Australia.
Russell Balding and the Board went back to the government for more funding in the pre-election pre-budget period in 2004 and were successful in getting an extension of the NII money to June 2008 ($54.4 million over three years). The ABC also won $17.4 million over four years for program acquisition from Australian sources and internationally.
That was money in the door. It enabled Balding to announce that a new digital channel will start up next February. Behind the News would return. And the cadet journalist intake would resume.
Coincidentally there is fevered speculation internally about the demise of the Rewind program. While Rewind production staff had been assured the series would continue into 2005, it was summarily executed last month and contracts terminated.
There is speculation that $7.5 million on offer through the Coalition’s arts policy for a 10 part series on the history of Australia sealed Rewind’s fate. The new money would be channelled through Film Australia and the ABC would be the obvious transmission and production vehicle for the series. At $750,000 per episode why waste your own money on expensive history when you can get it externally? The big question is: who will write the history of Australia for any co-production between the ABC and Film Australia? Keith Windschuttle? This could develop into another episode of the culture wars but with the ABC again at grave risk of editorial compromise-for-cash.
The NII is a political artifice which compromises the integrity and independence of the ABC. But the Board would argue it has eased internal financial pressure and sustained program output in the face of a government which has consistently rejected its submissions for substantial injections into (untied) operational base funding.
The NII money is audited by the government to see that the ABC is spending it on the agreed output and regional allocation. If you follow the NII references indexed in the 2004 annual report just released you will see its impacts throughout the corporation’s work. Yet nowhere in the annual report is there a schedule of the output and services directly funded by NII money. This omission is revealing.
In the controversy about Gardening Australia and George Negus Tonight, Balding said in a media release (November 5): ‘The ABC’s performance in respect of the NII program was reviewed only recently by the Government; that review formed the basis of the decision to continue the funding.’
In short, if you don’t play ball with the government’s political and constituent agenda — no money. Or, more amicably, the NII is a wink and a nod between the McDonald Board and the Howard Government. Through this funding mechanism the ABC is being politicised.
Hence, the perversity and compromise in both programming decisions and resource allocation. NII is a virus.
Their ABC.