New ABC news chief did not confirm there would be job cuts, but pointedly avoided ruling them out
In this week’s On Background, the ABC’s freshly arrived news boss gets a grilling from his troops, a star Seven AFL reporter finds time to help promote a drinks company owned by players he covers, and Sarah Abo could be back on TV screens before too long.
Winds of change
The ABC’s new news boss Simon Robinson breezed into Ultimo from London this week. On Thursday, he faced his first test: a grilling from Leigh Sales in a town hall with studio production value. The questions ranged from lay-ups like “How did you get into journalism” to curveballs like “Doesn’t having been away so long create a huge challenge for you as ABC News boss to judge what news stories and issues are relevant to Australians?”
You can’t say Sales was a wilting violet in front of the new boss!
But what was most revealing during the half hour-long internal broadcast was that big change is coming at the ABC.
Managing director Hugh Marks has already been upfront about the changes he wants at the broadcaster. Another of his leadership team, chief operating officer Melanie Kleyn, bit the dust this week. So far, Marks has appointed new bosses of news, screen, communications, legal and marketing. Finance will be next after Kleyn departs.
But to really make change in the crucial news division, that needs to be done by the actual news boss. And now, Marks has his own man.
On Wednesday, the ABC cut 46 jobs in its screen division, swinging the axe at staff who help put programs to air behind the scenes. The ABC is on a path to outsourcing all of its non-news programming.
Robinson said that doesn’t automatically mean cuts will hit the news division, but he did come pretty close.
“I think it’s really, really hard to say there won’t be job cuts,” Robinson said. “But that’s not me saying there will be job cuts.
“I think that having fresh eyes can be a good thing. So I’m not sure that I’ve come in with a change mandate, but inevitably I think there will be change.”
It would be naive to think that Robinson and Marks don’t already have a fair idea of what direction they want to take things in.
On his first day this week, Robinson gave a big hint in a note to all staff as to how he will reorganise the newsroom. He argued they should do a live cross or interview well once, instead of multiple times for different programs and said breaking down silos between different teams could be a better use of the ABC’s resources. AI will play a role in this, he added.
Speaking after the town hall, some staff told On Background they were impressed by Robinson. He spoke of his experience embedded with a US Marines unit during the 2003 invasion of Iraq and covering the second intifada in Israel. This made it clear he has a depth of experience.
Change is coming at the ABC in 2027. Robinson’s task is whether he can get staff and audiences to come along for the ride.
Drink it up
The role of a star “footy reporter” is an interesting one in 2026. Most of the time, you’re partly an influencer, partly a journalist and partly a power player in the world of AFL.
That balance can shift entirely when a story like the Sydney Swans scandal comes along. In that saga, Seven’s football reporters delivered multiple important stories.
But just one month after reporting on the drink and drug-fuelled night at Melbourne’s Pullman Hotel, the network’s lead AFL reporter Tom Morris popped up on social media spruiking the alcoholic beverage brand Barry’s Drinks, co-owned by Swans superstar forward Charlie Curnow.
Curnow – who was not caught up in the Pullman Hotel scandal – owns the beverage brand alongside Collingwood brothers Nick and Josh Daicos, Geelong star Bailey Smith, and the four players’ agent Robbie D’Orazio.
The social video shows Morris interviewing the elder Daicos about his “trade” from Barry’s watermelon flavour for its new “wild berry” flavour, in a mocked-up trade season style report. Gripping stuff.
On Background is told there was no payment for Morris’ appearance, and it was signed off by both Seven and SEN’s head honcho Craig Hutchison, who has also emerged as a major power broker behind the scenes at Seven.
But even then, this is tricky ground. On Background’s view? Leave the branding opportunities for the players. God knows journos didn’t get into this for the money!
Seven’s new human headline (reader)
Commercial TV watchers might not have to wait long before seeing Sarah Abo back on their screens. On Background sources hear the former Today host could be presenting Seven’s nightly news bulletin alongside veteran Peter Mitchell in Melbourne as soon as next year.
Abo, who went on maternity leave shortly after her co-host Karl Stefanovic was sacked by Nine (the owner of this masthead), and announced her departure from the network formally this week, is expected to move back down south and swap early starts for breezy evening bulletins, sources say.
It is quite the change for Seven, but the network isn’t doing away with Mitchell that quickly. The steer is that Abo could be introduced to Melburnians alongside Mitchell initially, before taking over on a solo basis down the line.
Abo and Seven supremos weren’t returning calls on Thursday, so we certainly aren’t saying it’s a done deal.
Perhaps they’re still reeling from the news that Sylvia Jeffreys would be replacing Abo on Today, when the good folk over at The Australian had linked former Sunrise host Samantha Armytage with the role (permanent or fill-in) no fewer than 14 times over the past 12 months.
We’re not usually ones to call out a competitor when they get it wrong (well, sometimes). We all get things wrong! But the amount of attention that the paper’s media diarist Steve Jackson has paid to the woman he has dubbed “the human headline” has been notable.
Only six weeks ago, Jackson wrote that Armytage’s appointment was a “lock” and, a week later, reported that she and Tom Steinfort were “all but locked in” for 2027. Props to Jackson for getting the Steinfort appointment right, but what happened with Armytage?
Well on Thursday, the Oz’s sister paper The Daily Telegraph made it clear, according to a mystery media insider, that Armytage apparently never wanted the job at all!
“She wasn’t interested in going back into breakfast TV,” the source said.
We only wish someone had asked her in the first place. It would have saved us so much trouble.
Spotted!
While the ABC in Ultimo was gearing up for its big town hall, Robinson’s predecessor was busy elsewhere. Just a few kilometres and a hop, skip and jump over Sydney’s Central Station, spies at Seven’s Eveleigh offices spotted former ABC News boss Justin Stevens walking into the building.
Job interview? Scouting out the joint?
It turns out Stevens was just parking in the public car park in the same building, where he had parked to run some unrelated errands. Mystery solved.
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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.