A third of ABC staff stopped work for 24 hours starting Wednesday morning after rejecting the broadcaster’s offer of a 10% pay rise over three years and a one-off $1,000 payment. The walkout, driven by an ongoing industrial dispute, left the public broadcaster scrambling to fill its key time slots.
By Wednesday night, ABC’s main TV channel was airing pre-recorded BBC segments and repeats, swapping out the flagship 7pm news and current affairs for an Australian Story rerun followed by a recycled episode of Hard Quiz. Instead of fresh reporting, viewers were served older content featuring a story on Olympic swimmer Michael Klim and a trivia face-off among TV personalities.
The audience response was immediate and brutal. Ratings numbers showed a pronounced drop across Australia. In Melbourne, three-quarters of ABC’s usual evening audience switched off at 7pm, falling from 222,000 the previous night to only 55,000. Even when Hard Quiz started at 7.30pm, the viewership only climbed to 77,000, still half of what current affairs typically draws. Sydney ratings fell sharply too, with over two-thirds fewer tuning in for the 7pm timeslot and similar steep declines took place in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.
These plummeting figures highlight how sensitive TV audiences can be to scheduling changes, especially when trusted news programmes are replaced with repeats. As the impasse between ABC leadership and its unionised workforce continues, with about 1,600 union members out of 4,500 staff, ongoing disruption seems likely. For now, the network faces both a divided staff and a shaken viewer base.
