ABC TV cuts to the arts

After a week of media-reported rumours the ABC confirmed this week that Art Nation hosted by Fernella Kernebone and The New Inventors are to be axed at the end of this year. And so far, 15 people have reportedly been offered redundancies. The Tasmanian made Collectors series is to be ‘rested’ with its production team shifted to a new program to be called Auctions.
In an email to staff published in the Australian on Wednesday, Director of Television Kim Dalton said the cuts were the ‘result of falling audiences for some programs, increasing financial pressures on ABC TV and a strategic commitment to focus its limited financial resources on prime-time programming.’
Almost every phrase in this reasoning has been disputed and picked apart since. Falling audience are blamed on successive budgetary cutbacks and a lack of marketing and advertising (The Australian). Art Nation could argue a rotten time-slot just as powerfully. The focus on prime-time programming has been countered with calls that the ABC is abandoning its Charter obligations and questions as to why its pursuing such a goal anyway with even Harold Mitchell getting in on the debate.
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, has said he will be asking ABC managing director Mark Scott for further information on the cuts, as funding from the government has not changed. In fact as reported in the Sydney Morning Herald the ABC received an extra $165 million in its current funding agreement. The ABC has countered that this money has gone to drama and children’s and obviously funding for internal production or factual or entertainment has not improved. (SMH)
Vocal ABC journalist and broadcaster and former staff-elected director, Quentin Dempster has called for an inquiry ‘into the siphoning of taxpayers’ funds to the commercial sector’ by way of outsourced and co-produced programming. He calls the explanation that resources are to be diverted to support prime-time content ‘disingenuous’ as prime-time is dead in a new digital era of on-demand and downloadable entertainment. “The ABC cannot be truly independent unless it has a capacity to create and produce its own original programming,” he said in the Age (4 August 2011).
Some of this may be open to debate. Many of the ABC’s most successful programmes have originated from outside the organization and outsourcing doesn’t mean that Australian culture or content will disappear. Does commissioning programmes truly damage the ABC’s independence or open it to commercial influence any more than the onus of requiring the ABC to meet budgetary and reporting requirements? And contrary to conspiracy-theory notions that the commercial sector is ripping off the ABC, many producers will tell you that it’s the ABC that holds the cards, driving exceedingly tough deals when it comes to commericalising and holding on to licencing rights.
There is of course, a strong argument that the ABC should retain a mixed production model particularly for the role it plays in developing ideas, talent and skills vital to both the Australian television industry and to Australian contemporary culture. As Quentin says ‘the anguish now felt inside the ABC from the latest program cuts would not arise if there was a genuine mixed production model with the ABC retaining the capacity and leverage to make the full genre range of copyright programs itself by developing its own talent and skills base.’
In Dalton’s email he said that due to the development of co-productions for 2012 with ScreenWest in Western Australia and the South Australian Film Corporation (SAFC) in South Australia production requirements are less. Staff from the production pools in WA and SA are to be made redundant, and more will go from NSW, Victoria and the Northern Territory.
The ABC Production Pool is a repository of skilled and highly specialized production staff that can be allocated to productions as required. They are generally permanent employees and represent a larger ‘cost’ than the preferred financial diet of freelancers, contractors and casuals employed on a project basis. But ABC staff have a value that is not accounted for, as vessels of corporate memory and organizational continuity, and as resources that underpin internal training and knowledge sharing.
It would also seem many within the ABC think there will be far more cuts to come. Earlier in the week the media was reporting rumours that 100 jobs could be lost, although Dalton dismissed this as “wild speculation”.
There must be mixed-feelings for those involved in the television and content making ‘arts’, those who may see gains and those who see losses. Yet what is perhaps of most concern for those involved in other areas of the ‘arts’ who rely on television to promote and explain their work to a broader audience is whether the ABC will be able to air, either commissioned or internally produced, programs that highlight the achievements and diversity of the Australian arts community, and that capture audiences’ imagination and enthusiasm for the arts.
In his email to staff Dalton also said it should be noted that the online portal, Arts Gateway, would continue. This suggests that the ABC sees its Charter requirements as being spread across the many mediums at its disposal from online to radio and that television is just one component in this mix. A website is also comparatively pretty cheap. He also said that arts programming will continue on Sunday afternoons just with ‘acquired arts programs’ not ABC made ones. ‘ABC TV will maintain its strong commitment to arts programming with a focus on prime time,’ he said. ‘The Tuesday evening Artscape slot, the First Tuesday Bookclub, At The Movies, ABC2 Live arts performances plus a number of one-off arts documentaries, series and events will continue on ABC TV in 2012.’
This doesn’t sound like the arts will be particularly benefiting from a ‘strategic commitment to focus on prime-time’.
It is sad to see a weekly-programme such as Art Nation not given a chance to further develop and grow, in prime-time for instance. And clearly, something isn’t adding up. After all why when so many more people are taking part in the arts, according to Australia Council research, when they are regularly involving themselves or attending arts events are they turning off television programmes on the subject? Or is it how we define ‘arts programming’?
Architecture has had its Grand Designs, interior design is getting The Renovators (whether it likes it or not), even dance has been popularized through programmes such as ‘So you think you can dance?’. Maybe other areas of the arts are ripe for new formats and shows that will have audiences avidly tuning in for the next episode and intrigued enough to dig a bit deeper and explore the arts more personally. What about a show that explores the energy and vibrancy of Australian arts culture; that powerfully engages audiences with what artists are trying to say about society, a program that drives insight, reflection and inspiration. Now, that would be something to watch. And let’s hope it is on the ABC.

The ABC reported that staff have voted in meetings of the Community and Public Sector Union to campaign against outsourcing of ABC programs.
The final episode of Art Nation will air 27th November, 2011.