Australia’s national news broadcaster says more funding is needed to make an impact in the Pacific region after years of cuts leading to service shutdowns.
The ABC’s head of international services, Claire Gorman, warned Australia could be left behind in the race for soft diplomacy against other nations, revealing the ABC allocates only $11 million a year for its international reporting.
This pales in comparison to France’s international broadcaster, which receives $400 million, the UK’s $700 million investment in the BBC’s world news service, the US allocating $1 billion to its global media agency, and China pumping more than $3 billion into its global news funding.
International media services are among the most powerful, effective and immediate tools of government influence that can amplify public diplomacy initiatives, which the ABC attributes to Australia’s positive influence in the region.
Over the years, funding cuts have led to the loss of radio transmitters and the closure of ABC’s Asia Pacific television service.
“We do an enormous amount on that skeleton budget,” Gorman told a parliamentary inquiry on Thursday.
However, the ABC remains one of the most trusted media brands in the Pacific thanks to the quality of the content produced.
“People regard us really well, but we do need to act on that,” Gorman said.
She warned the trend of digital fragmentation in the way people consumed news would impact the broadcaster hugely if it did not adapt.
This is the case in the Pacific, in which Ms Gorman detailed a shift towards the use of mobile phones in the way audiences receive their news.
“Digital is very popular and has a very high usage rate when people get in to range,” she said.
“Often people will have one or two SIM cards and may go to within range, download a whole range of content and ... (consume) the media back home.”
That was why the ABC needed to do more across the range of social channels in Southeast Asia, Gorman said.
Although the transformation is occurring at slightly different rates across the Pacific, she says the ABC is still able to capitalise on traditional broadcast platforms, with AM and FM radio as the most used media format across six key Pacific markets.
The public broadcaster has had a presence in the Indo-Pacific region for more than 80 years through radio, television and digital mediums, reaching 38 Indo-Pacific countries and territories.
