The ABC has axed Lateline and Friday night current affairs program The Link.
Staff were told of the move in a special briefing this morning.
Hosts Emma Alberici and Stan Grant will be reassigned to other roles within the ABC.
Lateline host Alberici will be appointed chief economics correspondent, while Stan Grant, who joined the ABC one year ago as indigenous affairs editor and host of Friday night 7.30 replacement The Link, will get two new roles.
Grant will host a 9pm panel discussion program on ABC News Channel, as well as become chief Asia correspondent.
A new 10.30pm news will replace Lateline, while a replacement for The Link on Friday at 7.30pm has not been decided.
“When it launched in 1990 Lateline was a groundbreaking program, and for almost three decades it has made an enormous contribution to Australian public life,” said ABC News Director Gaven Morris.
“Many great ABC journalists and production teams have worked with Lateline and the current team has produced an innovative brand of late-evening current affairs. The Link was a bold experiment that has done wonderful, creative work.
“This proposal is no reflection on the excellent work of the program teams. But with audience habits changing, we can deploy these resources more effectively in other ways.”
After 27 years on air, Lateline fell victim to budget cuts and dwindling ratings. The program has endured budget cuts and staff departures. Two years ago it moved to a 9.30pm slot on the digital ABC News Channel, with a repeat on the main channel in its traditional 10.30pm slot. But audiences stayed away.
Stan Grant is to host a morning discussion program on ABC News Channel.
This year Lateline host Tony Jones took leave from the program, although he continued to host Q & A.
Kerry O’Brien, the inaugural host of the show when it started in 1990, is just one of many ABC stars to front the program, which started with a late night panel discussion format.
Leigh Sales, Maxine McKew and Virginia Trioli have hosted the program, which was unique when it started but such panel discussions are now ubiquitous across TV news channels and much cheaper to produce that Lateline. The program went through several changes of format as a current affairs program, reacting to the news of the day before moving to a more feature format.
✔@leighsales
Lateline will go down as one of the great programs in the history of ABC current affairs and Australian journalism.
The axing is part of a reorganisation of current affairs staff into editorial teams that will work in content groups across TV, online and radio.
The ABC will create a daily investigations unit of about 30 people and a specialist reporting team of about 20 people that will cover science, regions, consumer affairs, education and health.
Staff from existing programs will be offered the chance to join the new unit although ABC sources said there could be some redundancies.
The news comes before the ABC readies itself for a large scale content restructure in November, which is set to see less emphasis on traditional ABC departments such as radio and television, with staff grouped instead into content genres and supply programs for all platforms. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...k/news-story/742c2d8bb1e75571cab6222d64b3ea1f
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Leigh Sales
