The Commission of Audit’s Report has foreshadowed efficiency changes for the ABC and SBS, although it is not specific about how or what to cut. The commission recommends that ABC and SBS be ‘benchmarked’ against each other and commercial broadcasters.
 
The report acknowledges that the Commonwealth has no powers to target specific services of the national broadcasters.
 
In other media-related sections of the Audit Report, it is recommended that the Australian Film Television and Radio School be reviewed “with a view to merging,
abolishing or transferring” the organisation.
 
The ABC and SBS receive 89% and 73%, respectively, of their total revenues from government, with the remainder coming from advertising (on SBS), programme sales and merchandising.
 
The ABC has annual expenses of around $1.2 billion, of which government provides $1.1 billion . SBS has annual expenses of around $0.4 billion, of which $0.3 billion is provided by government.
 
The report, which recommends specific cuts or other reforms in many areas of government services, is not as proscriptive about the national broadcasters. It says:

 
The traditional arguments for government funding of public broadcasting are:

• universality, a form of media and content accessible by all, regardless of cost of provision;
• independence from commercial and corporate influence, with sufficient safeguards to establish independence from political influence;
• diversity, the delivery of content for which there is no incentive for commercial broadcasters to produce or distribute, such as localised, ethnic, cultural and educational forms of content; and
• a mechanism with which to pursue government policy aims, especially concerning delivery of non-commercial content to achieve social and educational outcomes.

According to the report, media convergence, especially the availability and access of text, audio and video media via the internet, is “increasingly eliminating the traditional arguments for public broadcasting. The need for government intervention or support has now been largely superseded by technology and commercial imperatives.”
 
While historically, the ABC was the only broadcast service available in many communities, especially in regional and rural Australia, the report concludes that the availability of the internet and increased coverage by commercial broadcasters is diminishing this market failure. Indeed, the onset of digital broadcasting has seen the number of free-to-air television channels now available increase from five (including ABC and SBS) to over 20, depending on the location of the viewer.
 
Anticipating cuts as a result of the Audit Report, the ABC Friends has called for a ‘snap action’ this weekend to show public support for the national broadcaster.
 

 
AFTRS
 
The report recommends ‘rationalisation’ for Australia’s national media university AFTRS:

 
Communications Portfolio
 
Analysing the whole Communications Portfolio, the report makes the point that the portfolio is “relatively small in terms of direct expenditure with total resourcing of $3.6 billion, of which $1.9 billion is departmental funding and $1.7 billion is administered.”
 
The portfolio employs 6,793 people, with the majority of people employed in the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (4,619), and the Special Broadcasting Service Corporation (1,058).
 
 
For the Full Report, click here.