on โ24-11-2014 06:56 PM
This is but one story of the waste.
I fully support the cuts.... Time the ABC ran leaner and stoped being a cess pool of left leaning types
The ABC is supposed to be impartial and take the middle ground NOT the far left line as it does.
-------------------------------------------------
"Good luck trying to change anything around here, there are too many lifers."
This was the advice given to me when I started as manager at ABC's Radio National last year.
It seemed like a dream job. I love the ABC and relished the opportunity to help steer RN.
But having previously worked as a journalist, foreign correspondent, editor and managing editor at lean, efficient and editorially robust media companies including Australian Associated Press, Fairfax and News Corp for over 20 years, I was shocked by the culture, waste, duplication and lax workplace practices exercised in some pockets of Radio National. I was even more shocked by the failure of the executive to want to do anything about it.
One problem, as one insider pointed out, was the so-called lifers, a pocket of predominantly middle-aged, Anglo-Saxon staff who had never worked anywhere other than the ABC, who were impervious to change, unaccountable, untouchable and who harboured a deep sense of entitlement.
They didn't have a 9-5 mentality. They had a 10-3 mentality. They planned their work day around their afternoon yoga class. They wore thongs and shorts to work, occasionally had a snooze on the couch after lunch and popped out to Paddy's Market to buy fresh produce for dinner before going home.
They were like free-range chickens, wandering around at will, pecking at this and that, content that laying one egg constituted a hard day's work.
They knew they couldn't be sacked or officially sanctioned because there was no appetite among the executive to make waves, take on the union or make a case for any more redundancies. So the lifers just thumbed their nose at any attempt at performance management. Managers came and went, but they were there for life.
The RN budget was another shock. It was predominantly tied up in wages for 150 people. There was precious little budget to do anything new or innovative and you couldn't turn any program off, no matter how high its costs and how poor its audience share and reach.
The executive would pander to the whims of celebrity presenters because they gave the ABC "edge and credibility", yet would take for granted journalistic giants like Fran Kelly and Geraldine Doogue who present world-class programs.
While online rules the media world, trying to get some RN producers to repurpose on-air content for online was like pulling teeth. Plus the systems they were using were archaic, due to a failure to invest in efficient, integrated content-management systems that worked across divisions and on multi platforms, especially on mobile devices.
There was also blatant waste. Taxi dockets were left in unlocked drawers for the taking and elephantine leave balances had been allowed to accumulate. When programs shut down for Christmas, staff would get approval from their executive producers to hang around for a week or two "to tidy things up". One editor asked for his leave to be cut back by a week because he'd need to pop into work during the holidays to "check emails".That constituted work.
Yet attempts to tighten basic oversight of taxi use and leave, controls that are the norm in the corporate world, were frowned upon by the ABC executive and actively discouraged as "not the main game".
Programming and content generation was another shock. While other media organisations live and die by their ratings, circulation and readership figures, some ABC programmers considered ratings irrelevant. Some producers strongly resisted editorial oversight and locked in segments that lacked editorial rigour and relevance. So the weekly Media Report went to air discussing foreign press freedoms while hundreds of Australian journalists were being made redundant just down the road.
The ABC can be leaner and remain editorially strong and independent as ABC's NewsRadio proves. With less than 20 per cent of RN's total budget, NewsRadio employs brilliant broadcasters including Sandy Aloisi and Marius Benson and produces 5000 hours of robust original content each year that reaches a bigger national weekly audience than RN.
That's why these ABC budget cuts announced by Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull are not just necessary but vital to the ongoing health of the corporation.
Pockets of the ABC have been allowed to get too fat, flabby, wasteful and unaccountable.
The doors have to be prised open so that the winds of change that have swept through media companies around the world can reinvigorate our ABC.
The same efficiencies and workplace practices that are the norm in corporate Australia need to be front and centre at the ABC so that it remains a strong, independent voice that is both editorially robust and reflects who we are - a culturally, geographically and socio-economically diverse nation that doesn't believe anyone is entitled to a job for life at the taxpayer's expense.
Louise Evans is a former manager at ABC's Radio National and former managing editor at The Australian.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/the-abc-has-flab-to-be-cut-20141122-11rtki.html#ixzz3JyCvJZ2f
Solved! Go to Solution.
on โ26-11-2014 12:35 PM
warning warning DEFLECTION
on โ26-11-2014 12:40 PM
you didn't answer Glee's question nero
on โ26-11-2014 12:41 PM
on โ26-11-2014 12:45 PM
Any good business person knows that wages costs at 46% is unsustainable.
Again, Mark Scott needs to go! It is little wonder that we are getting outright rubbish programming from the ABC these days as compared to many years back
โ26-11-2014 12:48 PM - edited โ26-11-2014 12:52 PM
I guess you could also say that taxpayers fund the Australian newspaper, when you consider that it's a loss making paper & the Australian Govt handed murdoch a tax refund of $882 million early this year
http://www.crikey.com.au/2014/08/20/how-the-australian-was-protected-from-the-cuts/
And the insulated status of The Australian shows up in the wage bill, too. The Australianโs average wage per employee was $174,000โโโwell above the pay levels at the metropolitan bureaux, including next-best Sydney ($141,000), Melbourne ($132,000), Brisbane ($125,000) and Adelaide ($115,000).
With such high wages, itโs it is no wonder the Oz lost $27 million before depreciation in 2012-13, or an operating loss of $30 millionโโโa blowout of more than three times the loss targetted in that yearโs budget, of $11 million. During the previous year, 2011-12, the paper lost $26 million, and well-placed sources say the broadsheet has lost almost $100 million in the last three years.
on โ26-11-2014 01:25 PM
@nero_wulf wrote:
Here's just one example of how wasteful and inefficient the ABC is.
2GB Ray Hadley employs 5 staff to produce 18 HOURS a week
ABC Media Watch employs 9 staff to produce 15 MINS a week.
Well, when somebody spends 18 hours on air talking without bothering to do any research they would not need staff would they. On the other hand if you put to air 18 minutes program with often multiple subjects, which had to be found and thoroughly researched they would need staff. And Media Watch has been been very valuable program showing us what sloppy & plagiarising people many of our popular media employs.
on โ26-11-2014 01:34 PM
Not to mention that there is a big difference between radio and TV programs.
on โ26-11-2014 06:52 PM
@nero_wulf wrote:Any good business person knows that wages costs at 46% is unsustainable.
Again, Mark Scott needs to go! It is little wonder that we are getting outright rubbish programming from the ABC these days as compared to many years back
You do realise that John Howard appointed him, don't you? Or did you forget that little bit of truth. He appointed him to address the 'percieved' bias, but in actual fact, all the investigations into the 'perceived' bias, concluded with the fact that there was actually no bias. I know this is difficult concept, but there you go. Carping on and on and on and on with untruths doesn't make them true.
on โ26-11-2014 07:14 PM
@nero_wulf wrote:
Here's just one example of how wasteful and inefficient the ABC is.
2GB Ray Hadley employs 5 staff to produce 18 HOURS a week
ABC Media Watch employs 9 staff to produce 15 MINS a week.
The mind boggles at what the total figure of waste would be.
How much of Ray Hadley's 18 hours a week is devoted to advertising?
โ02-12-2014 07:31 PM - edited โ02-12-2014 07:32 PM
this is an article for those amongst us who claim the ABC is biased.
The Labor leader has earned his own TV segment on ABC's Mad as Hell and own hashtag on Twitter: #ShortenSweet
it's more about politicains having a sense of humour and being able to laugh at themselves.......or not