By Pip Hinman
There's a perception that the ABC has been spared because the Mansfield inquiry did not recommend further budget cuts and opposed the introduction of sponsorship and advertising.
This is dead wrong. The ABC is facing the biggest attack to its existence since its foundation in 1932. A $66 million budget cut over the next two years and the recommendation that all non-news and current affairs programming be "out-sourced" — privatised — are bad news for Australia's major public broadcaster.
The former head of the ABC, David Hill, was one of the few public figures to point out that the Mansfield inquiry's recommendations take the ABC another step closer to privatisation.
In the January 25 Sydney Morning Herald, Hill wrote: "Mansfield's report continues with the process of dismantling, with its recommendations overwhelmingly aimed at further reducing ABC activity ... the most serious proposal is for the privatisation of ABC television program production — other than news and current affairs — and the closing down and selling off of ABC studios ...
"By commissioning program production from the private sector and producing only TV news in-house, the ABC will need only a fraction of its present production capacity, leaving open the financially attractive prospect of selling off the farm."
Mansfield's report also recommends that the ABC narrow its scope and become a purely domestic broadcaster, and sell off or close down Radio Australia, Australia Television and the symphony orchestras.
If these recommendations are adopted, more than 1000 jobs will be axed from programming in addition to the 900 or so jobs which go as part of the current round of budget cutbacks. The ABC will be turned into a shadow its former self. It will be less capable of resisting political interference from the government.
The defence of the relative independence of the ABC takes on added importance because Australia has one of the highest concentrations of media ownership in the world.
Funding slashed
Behind the hype about "efficiencies", "streamlining" and the need to find a more "focused" role for the ABC, the Coalition is seeking to dismember the ABC.
Leaked cabinet documents reveal that, before the last budget, some members of the cabinet expenditure review committee wanted to cut some $200 million from the ABC's then $550 million budget.
Fearing a political backlash, communications minister Senator Richard Alston argued for an initial smaller cut followed by a review which could pave the way for bigger cuts later on.
Despite the Howard government's pre-election promise to maintain the ABC's funding, the preamble to the Mansfield inquiry sets out the government's agenda pretty clearly: "... the government has decided that the current level of funding cannot continue indefinitely ... there is a need, therefore, to review ABC activities in line with new funding levels". These new levels include the 2% cut in 1996-97 and a $55 million cut in 1997-98.
Alston, who would like to pare back the ABC's budget to just $416 million a year, has now been forced into damage control mode and has promised to maintain the current level of funding for at least three years (until after the next federal election).
The funding cuts began under Labor. According to Dr Allan Brown, a senior lecturer in the economics school at Griffith University, from 1985-86 to 1995-96, while the major items of federal government outlays all increased in real terms, the real appropriations to the ABC declined by one quarter.
In his submission to the Mansfield inquiry, Brown noted that by international standards the ABC's budget is not large. "For the 1992-93 year, ABC appropriations represented 0.14 per cent of Gross National Product. This was a slightly lower level than the appropriations to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (0.16 per cent of GDP) and less than half the proportion of income accruing to the British Broadcasting Corporation (0.32 per cent)."
Comparing the budget costs of ABC with commercial broadcasting, Brown said, "... over a 20 year period from 1970-71 to 1990-91, the real revenue of the ABC increased at an average rate of 2.18 per cent, less than half that of the 5.83 per cent for Australian commercial television broadcasters".
He cited a 1992 study of television programming expenditure by the ABC which claims that the ABC TV service cost approximately 38% less to operate than the average for the commercial networks. Per hour commercial television costs were 22% higher for Australian-produced programs and 200% higher for overseas programs.
Privatisation
Privatising programming will therefore not necessarily save the ABC money. While the government is talking up the need to find budget savings, its real agenda is to shift public funding for the ABC to the private sector.
If all the ABC's non-news programs are to be privatised, it has been estimated by one pro-privatisation advocate that the transfer of cash to private film and television production companies would be in the vicinity of $100 million a year.
Then there's the question of how the ABC will be able to fulfil its charter to maintain programming diversity when it is forced to buy all its non-news programs.
Mansfield also looked at how technological changes, such as pay TV, would be likely to affect the ABC. According to Brown, pay TV has the potential to provide a wider range of program types than advertiser-supported television, and to offer material traditionally the province of public service broadcasting.
In an era of user pays, it's clear that the government wants to drastically cut the "free-to-air" service provided by public broadcasting.
If the ABC was forced to buy commercial non-news programs, there would be very little difference between it and the commercial stations. This would boost pay TV subscriber numbers, and the profit levels of pay TV's multimillionaire stakeholders. Is it really just a coincidence that Bob Mansfield, former head of Optus, was chosen to head the inquiry?
Defence campaign
At CPSU mass meetings in Sydney last week, ABC staff condemned the inquiry's recommendations to contract out non-news television production, close Radio Australia and privatise the Australia Television satellite service.
In Melbourne, Radio Australia workers said they would take strike action if the ABC board adopted the cuts.
With polls showing that a majority disagrees with cuts to the national broadcaster, the ABC is in a good position to mobilise opposition to privatisation. The well-attended rallies organised in all capital cities last year are another indication of the high level of public support.
At the moment, however, there are no plans for a new round of public rallies, according to the president of Friends of the ABC, who told Green Left Weekly that the next step was an "intensive lobbying campaign" from mid-February. Much more public action will be needed.