Up To 500 Jobs Expected To Go From ABC & SBS

Tense times at the ABC and SBS after projected job losses numbering as high as 400-500 were confirmed to be on the horizon for the broadcasters, with tens of millions of dollars' worth of payouts to follow.

As Fairfax reports, ABC and SBS are staring down cuts of up to $200 million to $300 million over five years, and expect that the payout bill for the impending round of redundancies — which will affect everyone from services staff to content makers — will land somewhere about the $25 million mark.

Earlier this week, Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull had told ABC Radio he had finalised the cuts and briefed management on the decision, though the ABC contested that claim; as Fairfax reported yesterday, there still appeared at the time to be some conjecture over the final number of cuts, but "internal expectations" were in line with the projected figure of 400-500 job losses.

In addition to those cuts, it is projected that several series could fall into the firing line, while SBS and the ABC will be under pressure to streamline costs on transmission contracts, distribution for catch-up services such as SBS On Demand and ABC's iview service, and the ABC may face a reduction in its number of foreign bureaux.

""I'm really not in a position to comment on the cuts at the moment," ABC director of television Richard Finlayson told Fairfax.

"We're going to find out very soon ... we're encouraged that the minister is looking to make an announcement in the near future and as soon as we receive official confirmation we'll be able to make a full response."

The ABC reportedly had 4679 full-time (or full-time-equivalent) staff in 2013-14; SBS employed 1301 people. The new cuts come off the back of a cull of 72 employees from the ABC's halls earlier this year. Somewhat unsurprisingly, as Fairfax reports, the public sector and media unions will launch a campaign protesting the proposed cuts from next week, with rallies going down around the country, and planned appearances from Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, deputy leader Tanya Plibersek and members of the journalism and arts communities.

Despite the troubled waters, ABC optimistically and confidently announced its excellent spread of programming slated for 2015 yesterday, including a confirmation that secondary channel ABC2 was safe from the scrap heap and the announcement of a two-part documentary based on the creation of AC/DC's seminal full-length Back In Black, Blood & Thunder.