It appears the $1.2b ABC budget claim may have come from news articles in early December 2013 involving Cory Bernardi's push to cut the ABC's funding and services, (link below).
It also appears the ABC funding figure was inflated for the article, (link to budget and Parliamentary papers below).
(ABC) funding of $837.6 million in 2013-14, $845.5 million in 2014-15 and $861.1 million in 2015-16.
The Government will provide $69.4 million over four years (including $1.8 million in capital funding in 2013-14) to enable the Australian Broadcasting Corporation to place more journalists outside metropolitan cities, introduce youth-focussed current affairs programming and expand regional participation in its programming.
The ABC will receive base funding of $2.5 billion over three years from 2013–14. SBS base funding will be $568.7 million over the same three year period
Scott noted that new funding is ‘tied to specific areas’. He warned against too much celebration, as the ABC budget will continue to be ‘tight’ and the broadcaster will still be required to save money. This will mean ‘standing still in many areas’;[9] in other words Scott implied that there may be areas in which the ABC will not have the money to embrace new technologies or continue services.
The ABC's funding should be cut and the national broadcaster forced to sell advertising and paid subscriptions online to compete with commercial newspapers, Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi says.
Senator Bernardi said he was happy for the ABC to keep its radio and television stations, but not for it to publish free news on its websites. This would destroy newspapers published by Fairfax Media and News Corp, Senator Bernardi said.
Senator Bernardi described its behaviour as ''cannibalisation of commercial media''.
