Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts Paul Fletcher has doubled down on criticism of the ABC for its response to potential local content obligations, but has sympathised with other industry views on the green paper – namely the call for streaming platforms to spend 20 per cent of their local revenue on Australian content.
In a shock move ABC managing director Michelle Guthrie departed after the directors decided it was not in the public broadcaster's best interests for her to continue to lead the organisation.
The ABC and Canadian public broadcaster CBC have agreed to co-develop and co-produce drama, comedy, non-scripted and children’s programming.
The ABC is teaming up with Canadian public broadcaster CBC to fund new children's animation projects.
The ABC board confirmed David Anderson will lead the organisation as MD for the next five years, assuring stability and continuity after the recent turbulence.
The ABC will cut the commissioning of independent production by about $5 million a year from July and rebrand the ABC Comedy channel to encompass genres such as arts, science, education and religion.
The ABC is rebranding its low-rating ABC2 as ABC Comedy in primetime and applying that brand across all TV, radio and digital platforms.
ABC managing director David Anderson said today the broadcaster is farewelling 229 staff, a combination of voluntary and forced redundancies.