Updated ,first published
The ABC will not air its flagship current affairs program, 7.30, on Wednesday night as part of the public broadcaster’s plans to deal with the fallout from a 24-hour strike that more than 2000 of its staff are expected to join.
Dozens of high-profile shows are expected to be replaced by reruns and content from other broadcasters, such as the BBC, when staff strike for the first time in 20 years, with Radio National Breakfast to effectively transform into the World Service on Thursday morning.
The ABC declined to confirm which shows and staff will be walking off the job, though the 24-hour strike, which begins at 11am on Wednesday, is expected to affect shows across all of its radio networks, as well as news programming on both the main television channel and News Channel.
It will air a rerun of Hard Quiz: Battle of the Networks, originally broadcast in December last year, in place of 7.30 on Wednesday. The 7pm bulletin has also been removed from the ABC’s TV Guide for Wednesday. An episode of Australian Story, likely to be a rerun, is in its place on the guide.
The Weekly with Charlie Pickering will air in its usual slot at 8.30pm as it is pre-recorded on Tuesday evenings. The show is independently produced and most of its staff are not employed by the ABC.
With many of the ABC’s radio staff members of either the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance or Community and Public Sector Union, the ABC is expected to have to make major changes to its radio programming, including running a national broadcast across its local stations.
Radio National’s Late Night Live will air a rerun on Wednesday. Host David Marr is a longtime MEAA member.
The ABC’s audio boss Ben Latimer told Radio National staff on Tuesday that the station will mostly run BBC content or reruns of existing content throughout the 24-hour protected strike period. Latimer also told staff that talkback stations and news programs will be filled by a mix of syndicated and pre-recorded programs.
“The level of local programming will vary by market, with some services retaining more local content than others. Some ABC stations will take a BBC feed for part of the schedule,” Latimer’s note to staff said.
Latimer also said the music networks – Triple J and ABC Classic – will feature reduced live output, with a greater reliance on pre-programmed music.
ABC presenters began informing audiences of the industrial action from late on Tuesday morning, with many hosts across the ABC’s radio platforms telling listeners how the shows would “sound different” on Wednesday. ABC Radio Sydney’s fill-in Afternoons host Kathryn Robinson said she would not be back on air, as did Drive host Thomas Oriti.
The ABC’s chief people officer also told staff there will be additional security present at its metro office buildings to ensure “safe access for staff and co-tenants in our buildings”.
The ABC was contacted for comment.
ABC News chief Justin Stevens told staff in a note on Tuesday afternoon that the 24-hour strike would have a “significant impact on our ability to deliver news services to our audiences”.
Despite the disruptions, the broadcaster is working with the unions to discuss how it would quickly scale its teams back up to cover any significant breaking news event that occurred during the strike, Stevens said.
“We all know how uncertain the domestic and international news environment is at the moment… so please stay alert to the need to be called in should a major story break,” Stevens said. Emergency broadcasting was exempt from the strike, Stevens said.
On Monday, Marks told this masthead that the unions’ proposals were “so far out of what is possible”, referencing their demand for 5.5 per cent annual pay rises and automatic promotions up the pay scale. The MEAA returned with a new offer on Monday, proposing pay rises of 4.5 per cent each year for the three-year cycle.
The current offer is below the most recent inflation figure of 3.8 per cent, as of January, and the unions argue it will hurt staff battling with the cost of living.
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Calum Jaspan is a media writer for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, based in Melbourne. Reach him securely on Signal @calumjaspan.10Connect via X or email.