(Transcript from World News Radio)
The heads of the SBS and the ABC say the services provided by the two broadcasters would have to be reviewed if the federal government cuts their funding.
Before last year's federal election, Tony Abbott promised there would be no cuts to SBS or the ABC but the federal government is now refusing to rule out cuts ahead of the May budget.
Greg Dyett reports.Speaking the night before last year's federal election, then Opposition leader Tony Abbott took a question on funding for the public broadcasters from SBS World News presenter Anton Enus.
(Anton) "Are the ABC and SBS in the firing line?" (Abbott) "I trust everyone actually listened to what Joe Hockey has said last week and again this week. Not cuts to education, not cuts to health, not change to pensions, not change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS."
Several months on, there's now some doubt about that commitment as the federal government looks at cost savings in the lead up to the budget.
In terms of how that might affect SBS and the ABC, Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull said this on the ABC.
"We've always said there's no plan to slash the ABC or SBS or anything like that but if they were, are across the board cuts in savings, we all, just as you said you'd expect the ABC to be part of that."
In late January, news broke that the federal government was to conduct what it called an efficiency review into the operations of both the ABC and SBS.
Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull insisted it had nothing to do with recent criticism of the ABC by Tony Abbott and other Coalition members.
Labor frontbencher Tanya Plibersek wasn't convinced.
"Before the election the government were very clear that they wouldn't be cutting funding to the ABC and today we read in the newspapers that they're proposing to cut almost a quarter of a billion dollars from the ABC at what seems to be a very petty tit for tat exchange with our national broadcaster."
Labor is convinced the efficiency study will be used by the Abbott government to justify cuts to the ABC.
Appearing before the Senate Estimates committee this week, the ABC's managing director, Mark Scott, stated that no part of the ABC would be quarantined from cuts if the ABC's budget is cut.
But Mr Scott told the Senators he was not expecting cuts because of the clear commitment given to maintain the ABC's funding.
SBS managing director Michael Ebeid had a similar message.
Responding to a hypothetical question from Labor Party Senator Louise Pratt about the impact of budget cuts, Mr Ebeid said this:
"You'd need to have a look at what the size of the funding adjustment would be. But I would find it very difficult to imagine being able to absorb any material cuts without a change in services."
In a written statement, SBS says there are no plans to cut any language programs and the efficiency study provides it with another opportunity to demonstrate its efficiencies and effectiveness.
As for speculation about a merger between SBS and the ABC, Mr Ebeid told the Senate estimates hearing there would be very little economic benefit.
He says there's been merger speculation for 30 years but he had no concrete information that it would happen as a result of the efficiency review.
In August 2007, the ABC commissioned the Boston Consulting Group to provide a confidential report on the benefits of a merger.
It concluded the move could save the federal government more than 40-million dollars.
Several years on, the Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull says he's not in favour of a merger.
But in this interview with the ABC, Mr Turnbull made it clear the idea hasn't gone away.
"I think the idea that you'd save money by, just simply by putting the two businesses together without considerable changes and so forth is pretty naive (Interviewer) Could I sum that up, you're not ruling that out but it's unlikely? (Turnbull) You can sum that up that it's something that's been put to me mostly by people associated with the ABC I might say for quite a few years and I have always been a sceptic and I say the same thing that I've said to you publicly now, I've said before publicly and that's what I've always said privately, I think the important thing is to ensure that each organisation can learn from the other. You know you have to give SBS credit for what it does with a very, very lean budget, now I recognise it does a lot less than the ABC and I'm not trying to set up a competition here but it is a, it's always had a very, very tight budget but this study will look at both organisations."
SBS managing director Michael Ebeid was not available for interview and the ABC has not yet replied to several questions put to Mark Scott by SBS.
