[kookaburra]

I’d argue that ABC being very decentralised reflects Australia in general.

While Canberra is the capital city, Sydney is the most significant media base for most broadcasters. Australia in general has the vast majority of the population concentrated in/around 5 major cities across the country. It also has several time zones. Catering to all of this means it may make sense to make extensive use of bases across the country.

News in Australia is also very different, generally. The country is quite parochial. Apart from most having a bit of interest in British affairs, due to our long historical connections, most Australians really don’t care very much about international news. In fact, they primarily care about regional/local news and this gets higher viewing figures than national news programmes. Their “news diet” is therefore different and the way ABC produce news reflects that.

I’d argue we are in the opposite position. The country is physically, geographically small so is only one time zone. London is a traditional capital city, where pretty much every company would have it’s UK HQ. Other news, whether political, the arts or whatever, really tends to originate from London. It therefore makes huge sense to have a centralised news department there.

Salford should have a basic North West Tonight/Today operation like every other region, at low cost. Breakfast should come from London, and the News at One should also. The idea of having part of the same team produce both is more an argument for Breakfast to return to London than for the One to move to Salford.

Why is having things randomly not in London regarded as a “Good Thing” when it creates inefficiencies, costs more and results in little difference to the viewer (often arguably a downgrade)?

In fact, at a time of such cuts in news at the BBC, cuts which are severely affecting the quality of output, how can such extravagance possibly be justified?

Australian here. I think the ABC and the BBC have different strengths and weaknesses in terms of their respective decentralisation efforts. 

In terms of population, it’s Melbourne and Sydney then daylight. Melbourne always had a large TV sector, but that has progressively moved to Sydney in the last 10 years (for the worse). It looks like to an outsider, Salford started with nothing while Melbourne always had that capacity. The audience didn’t lose anything in terms of talent or production values with programming coming from Melbourne. 

You also in effect have two cultures in Australia - AFL states and non AFL states. This means the media needs to reflect the football codes of their respective cities. 

News is very different in Australia. We obviously have more commercial broadcasters so the ABC either operates as a standard bearer or a market failure broadcaster. It’s also the only source for decent world news. In the last 15-20 years the big commercial broadcasters, Seven and Nine got much more tabloid and mostly focus on celebrity nonsense. To the point where LA is the location for their US bureaus. ABC is in Washington. 

Sorry to be the one to knock some colonial assumptions on the head but there’s not much interest in the UK. If it is, it’s a story of global significance or a long form report on falling living standards and the mess of brexit. Overseas reporting is dominated by Asia, the pacific and lazy US politics stories. 

News Breakfast was already going from Melbourne before the news channel started. It’s a useful point of difference to the commercials that both come from Sydney and are quite down market. Insiders, the Sunday political show is made in Melbourne because that’s where the first host lived and there was an effort to be out of Canberra. The new host lives in Canberra and the show is moving there permanently in the near future to save on costs. 

The ABC used to have ABC Asia Pacific/Australia network which was funded by the department of foreign affairs until the conservatives killed it in 2013. Melbourne was always the home for that. Melbourne still has the ‘Asia pacific’ newsroom which makes content for ABC Australia (the current international broadcast service). 

Australia doesn’t really have national news bulletins like the UK does. The nightly flagship on the ABC and commercials are all state based. The ABC tried and failed to shift to a BBC style national and news where you are in the 80s or 90s. Even daytime morning and afternoon news for the pensioners on commercial networks are now all local. There’s bulletin of course have a mix of local, national and world news. 

Radio National (similar to R4)’S flagship show, RN Breakfast also comes from Melbourne but that’s just because that’s where the host lives.

Despite all this, the ABC is still incredibly Sydney centric and cops a lot of criticism for it, from me included. This was particularly evident during the covid lockdowns and ABC news online has scant coverage of state affairs out of Sydney/NSW. 

Saying that, you look at ABC News Tasmania, NT or ACT and it’s basically has polished as ABC News Victoria. The regions on the BBC look…regional. But that’s their role in a hybrid national/local model.