The ABC is being pressured by the Federal Government to ask staff to forgo for six months a 2 per cent pay rise which was due to come into effect in October.
Following long-standing advocacy efforts, the ABC and SBS will officially launch audio description services this week, making their programs more accessible to the more than 450,000 Australians who are blind or vision-impaired.
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.
Josie Mason-Campbell is departing the ABC after three years as head of entertainment and factual amid a management restructure of the content divisions.
Over the next five years the ABC aims to become more culturally diverse in its staff and programming, more local and to make its services more personalised.
Aidan Laverty, the ABC's head of specialist content until he was forced to quit three weeks ago due to ill health, died on Tuesday.
ABC staff have voted overwhelmingly to reject the proposed deferral of a 2 per cent pray rise which was was agreed on in last year’s three-year Enterprise Agreement.
ABC managing director David Anderson said today the broadcaster is farewelling 229 staff, a combination of voluntary and forced redundancies.