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INTERESTING THEORY

ABC managing director Mark Scott:

We have to reorganise the way we work. If Sky News can deliver a 24-hour news service with a fraction of the number of journalists working in ABC newsrooms, then it stands to follow that the ABC is capable of producing a 24/7 news service for our audiences: we just need to work smarter to deliver it.

Won’t happen.

(Via reader Seneca)

Posted by Tim B. on 03/21/2008 at 08:24 AM
  1. Quick.  All workers, unite and refuse any job cuts or salary or benefits cuts.  The excuse we’ll use?  Greed.  We’ll say ABC is being greedy, at the expense of the workers.  Not one worker or salary dollar will we give up!

    Posted by wronwright on 2008 03 21 at 08:45 AM • permalink

  2. It takes a sizable workforce to take news off the wires and spin it.

    Posted by lingus4 on 2008 03 21 at 08:47 AM • permalink

  3. Self-canceling phrase at ABC:  “Work smarter.”

    Posted by Mystery Meat on 2008 03 21 at 09:02 AM • permalink

  4. Mr Scott is going to be in sooo much trouble on Tuesday morning.

    Posted by romeo on 2008 03 21 at 09:08 AM • permalink

  5. The idea of integrating their news services across radio, ABC1, a 24 hour news channel and the web sounds great but does seem hard to bring off with the entrenched culture and limited budget.

    However, it should be pretty simple to start a news and sport TV channel that simply rebroadcasts and repeats the many hours of bulletins, documentaries etc they already produce. Whether it would get many viewers is another matter.

    The real issue is when are they going to start a RAGE channel?

    Posted by gdog78 on 2008 03 21 at 09:13 AM • permalink

  6. The lazy bastards didn’t even have a mid-day bulletin on ABC1- seeing as they’re all dirty atheist commies, why did they feel the need to have Good Friday off? It’s not as if it’s Mao’s birthday or anything.

    Posted by Habib on 2008 03 21 at 09:21 AM • permalink

  7. #4 “Tuesday morning”? Does the ABC only take a four-day weekend over Easter?

    Posted by Burbank on 2008 03 21 at 09:34 AM • permalink

  8. After the tears which were shed when ABQ TV ops moved to Mount Coot-tha and the workers discovered they’d have to use their own cars* to get to work, this might be a bit too much to bear.
    *after 15 months a mini bus is still being laid on for those whose commitment to public transport will not be compromised by minor details such as the absence of any public transport.

    Posted by lotocoti on 2008 03 21 at 10:00 AM • permalink

  9. OT, but fairly major news - Saddam had Aussie killed:

    SADDAM Hussein’s Iraqi regime had an Australian aid worker killed as part of a state-sponsored terror program that also considered a plan to “eliminate” Australian-educated Martin Indyk, the former US ambassador to Israel.

    Top-secret Iraqi documents confirm for the first time that Care Australia worker Stuart Cameron was shot in Iraq in 1993 as part of a government campaign against foreign aid workers helping Kurds in the country’s north.

    ...

    The newly released document states: “The operation that killed the Australian was executed by a group co-operating with our directorate, on the Jam Jamal-Bazian road on January 7.” It details other aid-worker killings and the program to disrupt relief flowing to the Kurds.

    Posted by flying pigs over mecca on 2008 03 21 at 10:08 AM • permalink

  10. ”...we just need to work smarter..."

    As Tim said, won’t happen.

    The Union won’t permit it, and the mental abilities of a standard ABC journalist can’t allow it.

    Posted by Ash_ on 2008 03 21 at 10:13 AM • permalink

  11. "SADDAM Hussein’s Iraqi regime had an Australian aid worker killed...”

    If you think that will change the minds of the “anti-war” scum...you be dreaming.

    Posted by Dave Surls on 2008 03 21 at 10:16 AM • permalink

  12. ABC looks like a prime candidate for the Paco-Prompter, an automatic news generator that affords opportunities to scoop the competition 24/7. The Fibulator IV model enables anyone to simply enter a few names and dates and get instant stories of compelling interest. Relying on a patented statistical model that calculates the likelihood of any event occurring, you can set the dial for “Probable”, “Possible”, or “Dan Rather”, and generate ledes and entire stories that will keep your viewers entertained, and maybe even occasionally (if accidentally), well-informed. And with the photo shop and digital animation options, you can create entire news broadcasts!

    For example, let’s click on the Paco-Prompter icon (the sack with the dollar sign and the wings), enter “George Bush” and “Global Warming”, set the dial at “Dan Rather”, execute the “Top-of-the-Hour News” option, and see what happens!

    A video imbed opens on the computer screen; a news reader, standing under a spotlight next to a glass table under the “Fox News” logo, stares at the camera with a smug grin and a truculent expression. He is wearing a tan suit, a blue shirt and a bright green tie that suggests he hurriedly slurped down a bowl of algae just before the broadcast. He bears an amazing resemblance to Shepard Smith. Dramatic canned “Newszack” plays in the background. The camera zooms in on “Smith”.

    “Welcome to Fox News Top of the Hour. Did George Bush refuse to push for approval of the Kyoto Treaty by the U.S. Senate because he has an undisclosed investment in a manufacturer of summer clothing which is hoping to expand its sales of Bermuda shorts? The President denies it; Cindy Sheehan says it’s true. We report; you decide. This and other top stories after the break.”

    The Paco-Prompter: News before it happens.

    Posted by paco on 2008 03 21 at 10:28 AM • permalink

  13. ”...it stands to follow..."

    What the hell does that mean? Oh! It’s the ABC’s managing director mangling the english language. Move on. Nothing new here.

    Posted by SandiM on 2008 03 21 at 11:28 AM • permalink

  14. Minor correction to Ash_’s post.

    ”...we just need to work...”

    ‘The Union won’t permit it, and the mental abilities of a standard ABC journalist can’t allow it.’

    Fixed.

    Posted by Dave Surls on 2008 03 21 at 01:00 PM • permalink

  15. Well, the workers collective will have to workshop this one first. Management needs to realise that we’re not stakhanovites, you know.

    Posted by Big Arnie on 2008 03 21 at 04:15 PM • permalink

  16. Silly me, having read the first part of the quote ... If Sky News can deliver a 24-hour news service with a fraction of the number of journalists working in ABC newsrooms, then it stands to follow that the ABC is capable of ...and expecting it to continue ... producing a non-24-hour news service with an even smaller fraction of the number of journalists working in ABC newsrooms.

    What was I thinking?

    Posted by Don Charleone on 2008 03 21 at 04:29 PM • permalink

  17. The only thing that makes the ABC have any worth at all is that it provides services to remote places that wouldn’t otherwise have services.

    But that’s a problem of the twentieth century, not the twenty first.

    These days it might be better to just get satellite TV and broadband internet across the outback. It would provide a richer source of news and entertainment, and is probably cheaper than maintaining that viper’s nest of ideologues.

    Posted by daddy dave on 2008 03 21 at 05:14 PM • permalink

  18. If you want the ABC to become like Sky News and Sky News to become just like the ABC the solution is very simple. Just swap owners.

    Posted by alien kiwi on 2008 03 21 at 05:24 PM • permalink

  19. Sell the bloody thing and let Murdoch sort it out.

    Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2008 03 21 at 08:25 PM • permalink

  20. we just need to work smarter

    I think I see their problem....

    Posted by Barbara Skolaut on 2008 03 21 at 10:06 PM • permalink

  21. Hopefully, Scott is hinting re possible future outsourcing of Auntie’s News & Current Affairs from Sky ... per egg’s previous rants ... as Auntie was intially to provide the Pay TV platform’s News & Current Affairs via ‘The News Channel’ in a consortium with Fairfax (AIM: Australian Information Media (27kB PDF), which cost Auntie $50M? to set up), but which Packer and Murdoch subsequently rejected ... tables turned?

    Posted by egg_ on 2008 03 22 at 11:57 PM • permalink

  22. #17
    and is probably cheaper than maintaining that sheltered workshop viper’s nest of ideologues.

    Fixed.

    Posted by egg_ on 2008 03 23 at 12:01 AM • permalink

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