New ABC Chair Kim Williams will reverse part of the corporation’s digital strategy by committing to keep broadcast radio on air for the foreseeable future.

The ABC’s five year plan, released last year, focused heavily on the move to digital, saying: “As audiences increasingly replace broadcast services with on-demand, social and other digital media, the ABC must ensure that it is prepared to serve a digital-majority audience.” Digital first publishing priorities were a big part of the plan and, in active consideration at board level has been the possibility of turning off analog broadcasts of Radio National and possibly other networks with smaller audiences.

Williams has told The Guardian: “It is not available to the ABC to simply withdraw a variety of broadcast services, like for example Radio National or ABC Classic or Triple J… they are part of our responsibility.”

The Chairman’s position is in contrast with Managing Director David Anderson’s comments last year when he launched the strategic plan and  flagged a reduced investment in AM band transmission, while boosting investment in digital products, such as ABC listen, ABC iview and ABC News.

At the time, Anderson stressed that did not mean the end of local AM radio, but that it would play a smaller role. “It’s inevitable based on the trends that we see that the audience on some of our AM services will be so small that we’ll look at rationalising that over time..  it’s not a case of if that will happen, it’s a case of when and the speed to it,” Anderson told ABC Radio Perth’s Nadia Mitsopoulos.

The ABC board for several years has been considering whether to turn off Radio National’s broadcast transmissions, moving some AM services to FM or digital streaming and using podcast platforms to distribute specialist audio content. Williams believes “that’s getting slightly ahead of where the audience is… I don’t agree with that. I have reversed that decision.”

Williams has expressed his backing for radio several times since taking over the role from Ita Buttrose, believing that radio has been under-recognised and under-funded for some time. After the last round of redundancies, like other parts of the national broadcaster,  radio budgets and staffing were cut, which led to recruitment freezes and tightening of funds until the beginning of this year when the corporation scraped together some funds to promote various radio networks and allowed more positions to be filled.

A review of local radio resulted in improvements to the format of local stations and a review of Radio National is currently underway. Williams says he will continue to give more priority to broadcast radio during his term in the job.

He told The Guardian: “The ABC has an obligation to be a reliable broadcaster for the nation, I would offer the view that we are the last broadcaster standing, because there are a lot of people in Australia who don’t have money. A lot of people in Australia who are elderly and technologically unsophisticated. The ABC has an obligation to deliver for those, in addition to the ABC’s absolute statutory obligation to being an innovator.”

Williams will be seeking more funding to maintain the quality of existing services, as well as to push forward with new technologies and distribution platforms. He believes the ABC will have an important role to play in combating misinformation and strengthening Australian culture in the face of increased international content competition.