By Fiona Carnes
Despite its pre-election promise to maintain existing ABC funding and retain triennial funding, the Coalition government is threatening major cuts to the ABC's funds.
Friends of the ABC are concerned that the cuts will mean that Radio National will be axed and its programs dispersed to other stations.
Communications minister Senator Richard Alston, in an interview on Radio National, remarked, "The ABC needs a shake-up and it knows it". Perhaps the bits he thinks are in need of the "shake-up" are those that criticise the Coalition for breaking its election promises.
After years of Labor's cuts, Friends of the ABC are worried that a further shake-up could result in the ABC raising revenue from advertising and corporate sponsorship, which Senator Alston referred to as a possibility given the "success" of advertising on SBS.