The ABC’s Q+A program has been cancelled after 18 years, the broadcaster has confirmed, and another major restructure of screen, digital and audio content will result in scores of redundancies across the public broadcaster.
The savings from staff cuts will be “reinvested directly into more content and services for audiences”, the managing director, Hugh Marks, has told staff.
In an email seen by Guardian Australia, Marks told staff “around 40” roles would be made redundant and “around 10” additional fixed contracts would end early.
“The objective is to enhance our TV slate in volume and ambition, increase our capacity to commission more high value journalism, enable more original podcasting and put targeted resources into our metropolitan audio teams,” Marks said.
Marks, who has been in the job since March, unveiled structural changes in local radio, music programming, sport and audience development on Wednesday. It remains unclear how these backroom changes will affect consumers.
A new department, ABC Screen, headed up by Jennifer Collins as director, will commission television programs, including a proposed new Digital Content department to “streamline digital and social content”.
Another new department, the Audio Quality Team, will be created to “bolster training for content makers”.
Some Radio National staff in Brisbane, Adelaide and Victoria were called into meetings and told their roles were to be made redundant, according to ABC staff familiar with the issue, who were not authorised to speak publicly. There are no details about changes to Radio National.
The director of news, Justin Stevens, said the cancellation of Q+A would result in redundancies “and the loss of talented colleagues” but it was unclear how many.
“Q+A was a groundbreaking program that had made a significant contribution to Australian society,” Stevens said.
“We’re very proud of Q+A’s great achievements over the years. The team has done a terrific job, including a strong performance during the federal election campaign,” he said. “Discontinuing the program at this point is no reflection on anyone on the show.”
Q+A’s presenter, Patricia Karvelas, who will remain at the ABC, said she had enjoyed spending time with the audience members who came to the program on Monday nights.
“They have always been the reason for this show and I’m forever grateful to them for coming on national TV and having the courage to ask questions of powerful people,” she said.
The ABC said savings on Q+A would be invested in another audience participation project, Your Say, which was a success during the election, and news documentaries in the vein of Killing Season and Nemesis, Stevens said. The ABC will recruit for the new position of executive producer, documentaries & specials.
“We’re excited about being able to produce additional high impact, premium news documentary programs to complement the ABC’s strong factual slate,” Stevens said.
He said as well as hosting Afternoon Briefing and the Politics Now podcast and writing analysis for ABC digital, Karvelas will have the opportunity to make more Four Corners episodes.
Q+A was launched in 2007 by the veteran executive producer Peter McEvoy and its host, Tony Jones, and was highly influential in its early years, regularly making headlines and setting the news agenda.
One of the divisions to be folded is the Innovation Lab, which was founded in 2018 to test and experiment with new content and technology to prepare the ABC for the future.
Headed up by the digital content and innovation chief, Angela Stengal, the team is believed to be as big as 10 and staff have been offered voluntary redundancy or the chance to go into a redundancy pool to compete for other positions, sources say.
The last round of redundancies was announced in June 2023 by former managing director David Anderson and involved 100 job losses. But the biggest round in recent history was in 2017 when then managing director Michelle Guthrie reorganised the ABC along genre lines and made 200 roles redundant.
