I prefer to get my news from the ABC. Before you start yelling “latte-sipping leftie”, it has nothing to do with my political persuasion, which is none of your business anyway. I watch it because it isn’t full of sensationalist crap about how people are going to be murdered in their beds – that may be a bit extreme, but bear with me.
You see, somehow the salaries of the ABC got leaked to the Australian – who wrote this. It outlines who is paid the most at the ABC, with the highest-paid journalist being Tony Jones, who hosts Q&A. You can read it yourself and see who is paid what. The comments are pretty awful too, calling for the ABC to be privatised. Most media outlets don’t have to show what each specific employee is paid, except for the executives – which the ABC (a Government Business Enterprise or GBE) does, as well as all of the others.
Mark Scott has previously said that they don’t disclose specific salaries because the ABC is a public broadcaster and can’t match the commercial networks – this is true. Unlike the commercial networks, the ABC does not have advertising, and therefore lives off the $1 billion the government gives it – it may sound like a lot, but it has to pay for both news and entertainment production. It makes some extra off the ABC Shop, but as it says on the website: “All profits from the ABC Shop are reinvested into the ABC for program making”.
Let me put some of this into perspective. When Mark Scott said “Today, most private sector media executives looking down that list will not believe the salary rates of the ABC compared to what’s paid in commercial radio and television-land,” on Melbourne’s ABC Radio 774, he meant it.
https://soundcloud.com/774-abc-melbourne/jon-faine-with-mark-scott-on
Take the nightly news for example, Juanita Phillips, the anchor of ABC News NSW earns around $315,000 a year (2011-12) according to the Australian’s piece, while Chris Bath, who hosts 7 News Sydney, earns about $900,000 – at least that’s what news.com.au said.
Again, using the Australian and news.com.au, I’ll compare the female co-anchors of the breakfast shows. Virginia Trioli, of ABC News Breakfast is paid about $285,000, on Channel 7, Mel Doyle was reportedly being paid about $700,000 while on Sunrise and Lisa Wilkinson is reportedly being paid about $600,000 – but that is rumoured to go up considering the ratings of the Today Show.
Mark Scott also said on Melbourne radio that he was “concerned that this gives people like David Gyngell a list, a target, and it hurts the ABC’s ability to attract and retain talent“. I’m not surprised that he is concerned – now that they know how much Leigh Sales, Juanita Phillips or Mark Colvin earn yearly, if Channel 7 or 9 wanted to lure them, they could offer them quite a lot and they might decide to go. I hope they don’t and that they like their jobs enough to stay on the ABC.
The Australian also made some comments that, if you knew anything about the ABC, would make complete sense. They’ve started a conspiracy simply by saying, “More than $214m of the $453m national wage bill is spent at Ultimo in inner Sydney“. I hate to break it to the conspiracy theorists, but the ABC is headquartered in Sydney. It is where most national current affairs TV and radio programs are produced and presented, and where many heads of department have their offices.
It annoys me that the Australian has done this because contrary to what it believes, it isn’t in the public interest. It’s not really appropriate to ask someone their wage, and even less so to publish it so everyone else knows. General politeness lectures aside, the Australian shouldn’t have done it, even though they dislike the ABC.
Kara L 