ABC Chair Kim Williams has labelled claims published in News Corporation articles that the public broadcaster costs Australians “more than the price of a Netflix subscription” as “inaccurate, unbalanced and agenda-driven”.
The articles, published across News Corp’s mastheads by journalist Stephen Drill on Friday, claimed that the ABC “fails to reach 10.6 million Australians”, despite managing a budget of $1.1 billion.
In his response, Mr Williams said that Mr Drill’s claims “do not stand up to scrutiny”.
“On a monthly basis the ABC reaches around 80 per cent of Australians. Annually, fewer than 3 per cent of Australians don’t use the ABC,” Mr Williams said in a statement.
“Using Mr Drill’s methodology, an ad-free Netflix service costs households more than double the ABC per month.”
Mr Drill’s article also claimed that more than 1 million Australians “tuned out from the ABC in the 2024/25 financial year” and said that “lavish spending in some areas has infuriated insiders”.
The ABC chair’s response detailed the important services provided to the Australian public by the national broadcaster, including Emergency Broadcasting, continuous 24-hour news coverage, metro and regional news services in 67 locations across the country, and 10 international bureaus.
Mr Williams said that the ABC provided Mr Drill with “content and audience highlights” from the last 12 months, which were not included in the News Corp articles.
Those highlights included the ABC Network reaching 6.6 million Australians as the number one television broadcaster in the 2023-24 financial year across the five-city metro population.
The ABC is also Australia’s number two digital news publisher, number one news provider by followers across all social media platforms, and ABC Radio reached an estimated 4.77 million people each week across the five capital cities.
In his article, Mr Drill claimed that examples of the ABC’s budget wastage included the broadcaster’s launch of an improved news website, the opening of the ABC Parramatta office, and news coverage of the US Presidential election.
“We don’t believe any of these is a ‘waste’,” Mr Williams said.
“As has been publicly stated, the opening of ABC Parramatta and refurbishment of the Ultimo office has been entirely funded through the sale of former property in Artarmon on Sydney’s north shore and by leasing out space in the Ultimo head office.
“The ABC has a very small advertising budget, with an estimated 2.5 per cent share of expenditure. Major streamers such as Stan and Amazon Prime have between 10 and 20 times the marketing spend of ABC iview.”
Mr Drill’s article also claimed that the ABC has refused to reveal how much incoming managing director Hugh Marks would be paid.
“The salary range for the ABC Managing Director is set by the Remuneration Tribunal, not the ABC,” Mr Williams said in his statement.
“It is also published in the ABC annual report. ABC disclosure requirements are in line with all Commonwealth agencies.”
The ABC chair has also defended hiring sports broadcaster Bruce McAvaney to cover the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.
“Bruce McAvaney, an exceptional sports broadcaster, was not in Paris, he called the Paris Olympics with our team in Sydney,” Mr Williams said.
“The ABC broadcast the Olympics across regional and remote Australia as well as a number of capital city ABC stations, including Adelaide, to ensure every Australian could access live audio broadcasts.”
The ABC has contacted Mr Drill for further comment.
