The ABC and Albanese Government are discussing new funding to ensure the broadcaster can maintain its vital emergency broadcasting services, with ABC Managing Director, David Anderson, reporting that the number of emergency broadcasting events has tripled since 2020/2021.

Appearing before the Senate Estimates Committee, Anderson said there had been 189 emergency broadcasting events in 2020/2021 and that this number had progressively increased to 649 by May this financial year.

"The government is always keen to know that we are equipped and ready to do the emergency broadcasting coverage that we would normally do. That is something that is expected of us and something that we willingly take on board," Anderson told the hearing.

"We have had discussions with the government about the fact that we have this funding that does terminate later this year and what we see as certainly a funding challenge for it."

Anderson and chief financial officer, Melanie Kleyn, said that the increase in severity and regularity of emergencies now requires the ABC to manage its emergency broadcasting services differently, including maintaining staff coverage.

"It used to be that the emergency broadcasting season was a distinct season. Now it's all year round," Anderson said

Kleyn said the ABC now needs to maintain a broader property and transmission footprint to be able to reach more areas and to change leave patterns for news and local radio staff

"We need to fully resource this operation to maintain our coverage now, with the increasing emergency broadcasting coverage that we need to maintain," she said.

Anderson paid tribute to the staff covering emergencies, including the regionally based staff “living through it themselves” and the other teams who support them from city newsrooms. 

"There's a structure there that is a distinct team—which we've bolstered and doubled, effectively—but then they leverage from where we already are both in the regional bureaus as well as in capital cities, and then we effectively move and surge resources as we have to when there's an event."

Senator Hanson-Young said she hoped the government was considering more funding.

"Extreme weather will only become more and more frequent. The importance of Australians knowing what's going on at those moments is essential. Everybody knows you tune into the ABC, but it costs you money."

ABC Friends has argued for many years that the ABC’s emergency service must be fully funded because, in times of crisis, Australians rely on the ABC. In a survey conducted after the 2020 bushfires in NSW 60% of respondents said information provided by the ABC helped ensure their safety. 

Sophie Arnold
Enews Editor