Radio Australia’s parent body, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, has announced budget cuts of 17m US dollars. The ABC’s managing director, Russell Balding, says the cuts are due to the corporation’s failure to secure additional funding by the Australian government in the last federal budget. The cuts had been forecast some time ago.
In his statement, Mr Balding says the ABC board has approved management proposals for cuts to programmes and non-programme areas. Included is the already announced cut to digital television services. There will be further reduction in television advertising, schools production, live sport and News and Current Affairs budgets in television and radio. It reamins to be seen whether ABC AsiaPacific or Radio Australia will also suffer.
Around 100 positions will be affected, although redundancies will be limited to 20 to 25 jobs, said Russell Balding.