Massive Cuts at Radio Australia

[ChrisSmolinski]

Around 80 staff will be made redundant from the ABC, the Commonwealth Public Sector Union and an ABC spokesman have confirmed, however this figure may decrease once redeployment options are explored.

A Radio Australia staff member told Crikey 25 editorial jobs will go, while seven people in operations will also be sacked. Staff have been told that this will include the entire English-language division of Radio Australia, which the CPSU has confirmed. All casuals and contract staff will be dropped. Asked if this number of redundancies would have a large impact on Radio Australia, a staff member told Crikey they amounted to “gutting” the network. It’s understood just 30 staff will be retained in the division, with cuts in content expected. Flagship program The World will be reduced to a half-hour program.

In ABC International, another 46 jobs are going. Staff have been told the Australia Network may stop broadcasting earlier than September.


http://www.crikey.com.au/2014/07/14/around-80-jobs-to-go-as-abc-rejigs-foreign-coverage/

[glimmer twin]

from DXLD YG:

Here's what I've been able to assemble from various sources that I consider reliable about what can only be described as a truly catastrophic situation for Radio Australia. Keep in mind that RA management is left with few options, none of them good, in its efforts to preserve and maintain anything resembling a viable service for its regional and international audiences.

- The English Language Programming department (ELP) is effectively gutted. The only remaining RA productions in English appear to be some hourly news bulletins and the Pacific Beat program. All else, including the excellent Asia Pacific program, ceases.
- At least for the time being, RA intends to maintain a 24/7 English language service by pulling all of its content from ABC Radio domestic sources (except for the morsels described above). A revised ELP schedule is in preparation and will be announced and implemented shortly.
- Language services in Tok Pisin, Vietnamese, Khmer, Chinese, French and Burmese appear to remain but only in some skeletal form since about 3/4 to 4/5 of those staffs are to be axed. Again, it appears the plan is to pull some content from domestic sources, this time from SBS whose administration is likely to be housed with what's left of RA at Southbank in Melbourne as indicated in a previous press report.
- As unbelievable as this may sound, the situation is so dire and so immediate that there will be a culling of half of the journalists on staff via a random process -- no evaluations, experience, records of achievement or years of service considered.
- No reduction in shortwave schedules has yet been indicated, but it's hard to see how that continues unaffected and unabated beyond anything but the very short term.

Personally, I will reserve comment on all this at this time and let the facts speak for themselves. However, some of you will be aware of my admiration and appreciation for Radio Australia over the decades so you are free to draw your own conclusions in that regard.

John Figliozzi
The Worldwide Listening Guide
wwlgonline.com

[glimmer twin]

Jonathan Marks posted an internal e-mail to RA staff on his blog:

http://criticaldistance.blogspot.com/2014/07/radio-australia-slash-and-burn.html