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Redundancies a turn-off for Ten
Thursday, 18 October 2012
The Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance and the Community and Public Sector Union, working together as the Commercial Television Guild, believe the redundancies announced today by Ten Network Holdings are a savage blow that cuts to the heart of journalism in Australia’s communities. It’s believed that up to 116 jobs will be lost across the country as the company moves to centralise more of its news content and production in Sydney at the expense of producing local news.
Christopher Warren, federal secretary of the Media Alliance, says: “Today’s announcement is a dreadful blow to television journalism in Australia and demonstrates the continued shakeout in the media industry struggling to engage audiences and maintain advertising support. What is particularly disappointing is that the Ten Network did not consult us and more importantly its own staff and this is a direct breach of it’s the enterprise bargaining agreement it negotiated with its staff last year.”
Warren says the loss of local news will hit viewers hard. “Communities lose out when they lose their own local news. People want to know what’s happening in their community. If they are getting a story cobbled together somewhere else that pretends to be local, then they are not getting the full picture and they will simply switch off. In the end, the loss of local journalism hurts everyone.”
The Guild believes about 40 jobs will go from Sydney, 23 from Brisbane, 22 from Melbourne, 18 from Perth and 13 from Adelaide – a total of 116 positions. The jobs include journalists and producers as well as operations staff.
The Community and Public Sector Union, which represents camera operators, editors and other technical staff, has condemned the move by the Ten Network and said it would do everything within its powers to ensure that its member’s rights and entitlements are respected. CPSU national president Michael Tull said: “I find it hard to believe that Ten management did not see this coming. We’ve all be watching the ratings and the company’s financial performance and yet the first we have heard about these cuts was when they dropped this bombshell on our members who are obviously distraught at the news.”
“There has been no consultation to date and all we have from Ten management is a guarantee of a meeting next week. We are angry that Ten has failed to meet its obligations.”
The CPSU warned that if the bulk of the cuts fall in Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane they could do irreparable harm to regional diversity.
