[LINK] ABC to 'aggressively pursue digital expansion'

[Stephen Loosley]

ABC news to spend aggressively on expanding Australian digital audience

Head of news Kate Torney outlines growth plan, saying corporation intends to increase investment in online services by 40% over next three years

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/apr/29/abc-to-spend-aggressively-on-expanding-digital-audience


The ABC will aggressively pursue a digital expansion over the next three years, spending significantly more on online and mobile news with the aim of reaching 40% of Australians by 2017.

The ABC’s head of news, Kate Torney, outlined what she called the “brave” plan by the public broadcaster to propel the ABC into the digital era in a major speech at the University of Queensland on Wednesday evening. http://abcnewsgathering.tumblr.com/post/117809138841/the-future-of-abc-news-director-of-news-kate

“In news we will lift our investment in our online and mobile services by approximately 40% over the next three years,” Torney said.

“Today, the ABC reaches 27% of the nation’s digital audience – most of that is through news. Our target is to reach 40% by 2017. To do that, we have set an aggressive growth plan and ABC News is aiming for monthly increases of 2.5%.

The push into the digital space is likely to upset the major commercial media organisations, many of whom are already critical of the public broadcaster for getting in the way of their own online platforms.

Companies like Fairfax Media and News Corp Australia are already struggling to make digital news platforms pay to compensate for a collapsed newspaper business model.

Torney said getting the ABC’s strategy right was “a matter of survival” for the 83-year-old media organisation as it faced increasingly tight budgets.

“This investment will allow us to significantly extend our capacity for breaking and rolling news coverage to online and mobile audiences. It will enable us to build digital news gathering skills within our metropolitan newsrooms and in our current affairs and international teams.”

ABC Online is competing with News Corp’s news.com.au and other masthead websites, including the paywalled the Australian.

Internally, the digital expansion has caused tension too. Torney acknowledged this with a reference to ABC TV journalist Sarah Ferguson’s sharp remarks at the Walkley awards last year.

Ferguson said: “The way I look at it, ‘legacy’ is what my fast-departing colleagues, with their years of broadcast experience, leave behind for those of us who still hold fast to the idea that the journalism we do on radio and on television is important”.

In November last year, the Coalition cut the ABC’s budget by $200m over four years, which resulted in the loss of 400 jobs.

Ferguson spoke of anger among ABC journalists about the redundancy process, which included being placed in redundancy “pools”.

Torney said on top of those major budget cuts there was a restructure and an additional $20m was diverted from radio and television to fund digital services.

“Managing change is a challenge shared by every traditional media organisation in the world,” Torney said. “Every major media group — the BBC, the New York Times, Fairfax, News Corp — is shifting investment to digital and mobile. If there was an easy answer, someone would have found it by now. There’s not, we are all working it out as we go along, learning from each other and from the newcomers, too.”

The ABC has diverted funds from current affairs by axing local editions and trimming flagship programs like Lateline, 7.30, Four Corners and Radio National specialist programming to fund new positions such as video journalists, multi-platform producers, digital producers and social media specialists.

Torney said the changes were brave but necessary.

“Our strategy is brave, but the greater risk is doing nothing and not investing in the new,” she said. “That would result in a weaker, less relevant ABC, rather than a compelling, vibrant media organisation at the centre of Australian life — with a great future.”