Four Corners loses windfall and project dubbed Great Ideas Grant stalls. Plus: Sky News goes dark in the regions and clouds loom over Sunrise
The ABC has a budget problem and it’s not just the $84m hole imposed by the Coalition in May. An internal budget shortfall has seen Michelle Guthrie’s chief financial officer Louise Higgins rip $1.4m out of the news budget to pay for the next federal election coverage. The big loser is Four Corners, which has lost close to $1m of its budget at the eleventh hour. The timing is unfortunate as the flagship program’s journalism is sparking royal commissions and judicial reviews. A sparse kitty has also led to the cancellation of the centrepiece of the MD’s strategy: cutting middle management to build a $50m content fund. Some staff have described it as a “massive budget black hole”.
It seemed too good to be true when back in May the ABC news director, Gaven Morris, delivered Four Corners an unexpected bonus: an additional $1.5m on top of its $4.5m budget to boost the program’s digital resources and do another four programs. But the new financial year brought the bad news that the funding windfall had to be returned. Other departments are similarly being squeezed. A spokeswoman for ABC News said: “With the funding scenario continuing to change, we weren’t able to add extra episodes this season. Four Corners is still well resourced and fully sustainable for the outstanding work it does, and News is investing in a range of one-off specials and other initiatives such as upcoming investigative documentary Exposed.”
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