$254 Mil Cut from the ABC

The leaner, meaner ABC has arrived?

Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has announced today that the ABC will have its budget cut by $254 million over the next five years.

The budget purse strings will be tightened by 4.6 percent overall, with the Minister announcing that the ABC would receive $5.2 billion in funding over that time.

Cutting to the chase in Malcolm’s speech in Adelaide, ABC News has reported:

"All of the savings can be found within operational efficiencies of the kind canvassed in the Lewis efficiency study," he said.

"There is a temptation for management to blame the Government for some of these program changes. That would be cowardly.”

"The ABC management know that they can meet these savings without reducing the resources available to programming – furthermore they know that the Government and their board know too."

SBS didn’t escape either, their budget will be sliced by $25.2 million over the same 5 year cycle.

"It is the millions of citizens who tune in to the ABC or SBS each week who will decide whether the Government should continue to invest billions of dollars in these two great national institutions on their behalf.", said Malcom Turnball

While Malcolm Turnball announced the respective cuts in funding to the ABC and SBS, he also released  the executive summary of The Lewis Efficiency Review. You can view the report here.

Malcolms full speach has also been made available and you can view that here.