More job cuts for News Corp and ABC in South Australia

Over the last six months it was the ABC that was a vital source of information about the bushfires and the pandemic. 

When much of the commercial media preferred to sensationalise, the ABC on the whole provided an objective and balanced coverage of these national disasters.

 Yet the government remains obsessed with gutting the ABC.  Backbenchers routinely claim that the ABC is biased, but anyone with any sense of history will recall that governments of all persuasions have complained that the ABC is biased and long may it continue to hold the government of the day to account. 

Instead of cuts the government should boost the ABC budget to 1990 levels. – John Töns

The report claiming ABC funding has been cut by $800 million is laughable.

Unfortunately, the ABC spins indexation freezes into cuts – which effectively means unless it gets more money each and every year, its funding is described as ‘cut’.

That equates to an employee not getting an annual pay rise, then claiming they had a pay cut.

Also, the ABC is endeavouring to lump its situation in with commercial media outlets, many of which are enduring genuine cuts to their revenue, and making staffing cuts to survive.

In contrast, the ABC’s funding is guaranteed; the challenges of revenue and income via advertising – and having people choose to pay for its product – is foreign to our national broadcaster.

Taxpayers have no choice but to pay for the ABC, whether they consume its products or not.

Many in commercial media might consider current complaints about ABC funding as another abject failure to ‘read the room’. – Paul Mitchell

I have little empathy with the ABC cut when the entity only becomes more and more Sydney-centric and left wing biased.

The ABC could easily axe its appallingly low-rating ABC National with the highly paid Fran Kelly or the 20 minutes of “Media Watch” with Paul Barry on some $200,000.

Get back to the rural roots and proper unbiased news and I will go back to supporting them. Otherwise, why am I paying for this. – John Lewis

Commenting on the story: City council pushes on with Hutt St Centre legal review

Oh Adelaide City Council, where is your heart? Where is your decency?

You should all watch ‘Filthy Rich and Homeless’ on SBS.

Stop bashing Hutt Street Centre. Respect the homeless. Honour the tireless workers and generous volunteers. – Maurice Shinnick

Want to comment?

Send us an email, making it clear which story you’re commenting on and including your full name (required for publication) and phone number (only for verification purposes). Please put “Reader views” in the subject.

We’ll publish the best comments in a regular “Reader Views” post. Your comments can be brief, or we can accept up to 350 words, or thereabouts.