Complaints galore at the ABC

The ABC’s annual report for 2023-24 has been quietly released, and trawling through the 274-page document gives a number of insights into the year the national broadcaster has had, including which programs have been the most complained about.

The ombudsman’s review found that content complaints to the ABC were at a five-year high, with 49% of those “attributable to the Israel-Gaza war”.

“Uncharacteristically, Q+A beat News online as the number one complained about program due to a campaign about a single episode aired in late 2023 which dealt exclusively with the war,” the report read. The ombudsman investigated 2,015 complaints about Q+A in the past year, around four times that of News online at 520 investigated complaints. 

Elsewhere, the ABC’s annual performance statements tracked 22 measures, half of which did not meet the ABC’s own targets. 

Among the performance measures where targets weren’t met were perceptions of value of the ABC to the Australian community, percentage of Australians that believe the ABC is doing a good job of producing and sharing programs that reflect the cultural diversity of Australia, employee engagement, Indigenous representation, and representation of culturally diverse executives and content makers. 

Under the ABC’s “measures of community satisfaction”, the percentage of people who believe the ABC is accurate and impartial when reporting news and current affairs, according to the broadcaster’s corporate tracking study, is down one percentage point on last year, to 72%. 

Likewise, the number of people who believe the ABC reflects the cultural diversity of the Australian community is down one point to 77%, and the number of people who believe the ABC is efficient and well managed is down two points to 67%. 

The ABC’s digital audiences declined in 2023-24, with weekly active users declining by 5% compared to 2022-23, with the ABC News website being “the primary driver of overall network decline”. 

The Spirit of Australia … is asking for favours from CEOs

As his colleagues at the Financial Review pointed out this morning, the lead headline generated by Joe Aston’s new book about Qantas not being about Qantas’ own misdeeds is surely a win for the embattled airline (and an averted headache for its communications boss, who the AFR reports was in attendance at the launch of the book). 

Instead, it’s all about Joe and Albo. Albanese has come under fire for his cosy relationship with the airline’s top brass, with the book claiming he sought flight upgrades from former CEO Alan Joyce, and the AFR since reporting he failed to declare upgrades given to his ex-wife. 

Albanese hit out at Aston’s past when the issue was raised in the press, firing off a remarkably quick one-liner about how he hadn’t seen any disclosures of Aston being a former Liberal and Qantas staffer. 

Evidently neither the PM nor any of his myriad media staff had actually read the book — the very first line of the very first chapter is a disclosure that Aston worked for the former “member for Qantas”, Liberal MP Bruce Baird. 

A day after trying to play the man rather than the ball, Albanese came out and denied explicitly having “ever” solicited Alan Joyce for Qantas upgrades.

If doors could talk

Sometimes the jokes write themselves. A Nine tipster got in touch with us late last week to inform us that the revolving door that serves as the main entrance to the company’s North Sydney headquarters, having been broken for about a fortnight and being recently repaired, had broken once again. 

Perhaps it’s been worn out by the stream of executives leaving the company in recent months. 

First was former news and current affairs director Darren Wick, leaving in March after 29 years following allegations of “drunken, lecherous” behaviour towards women in the workplace.

In May came the revelation that head of communications for Nine-owned streaming service Stan, Adrian Foo, had left the company in 2023 after an investigation into allegations of bullying and inappropriate touching. 

In June, chair Peter Costello stepped down days after appearing to shove The Australian’s Liam Mendes at Canberra Airport while Mendes questioned him over the workplace culture at Nine. 

In September, following mass redundancies and a staff strike during the Paris Olympics (and event to which Nine held the rights), CEO Mike Sneesby stepped down.

Earlier this month, communications chief Victoria Buchan was made redundant after 15 years with the company.

This week, it was announced that chief product and technology officer Rebecca Haagsma will leave in February for a role with the AFL.