The cuts to programs and staff at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) announced yesterday will significantly impact staff and audiences, but could advantage Charles Sturt University (CSU) journalism graduates.

Ms Kay Nankervis, lecturer in journalism at the CSU School of Communication and Creative Industries in Bathurst, said, "It's disappointing to see the national broadcaster forced to scale back after being innovative over the last ten years in response to multi-platform digital technology and program delivery."

Ms Nankervis was commenting on the announcement yesterday, Monday 24 November, by ABC Managing Director Mr Mark Scott, following the federal government's requirement of a 'productivity dividend' from all federally funded agencies.

But Ms Nankervis was optimistic about the prospects for current and future students studying the CSU Bachelor of Communication (Journalism).

"If the ABC's moves are a strong response to new digital technologies and changing audience needs – as ABC Managing Director Mark Scott says – then our students and graduates will be well placed to take advantage," Ms Nankervis said.

"With the recent restructuring of our course, our journalism graduates will be able to work across all media platforms, and to engage with the new ways in which Australians are getting their news. So while I am saddened to see so much institutional knowledge about to leave the ABC in a wave of redundancies (10 per cent of staff), I am excited for our graduates who will be a perfect fit for a new look digitally-shaped ABC."

Included in the cuts, the Adelaide TV production studio will close and TV production in states outside Victoria and NSW will wind down. Five regional radio bureaus across the country will close. Bush Telegraph which serves regional/rural radio audiences is to be scrapped.

"It means that a great deal of ABC operations will be centralised in just two states to the detriment of opportunities for Australians elsewhere," Ms Nankervis said. "What is also saddening is that 300 jobs are to go immediately, among the 400 to be implemented over time.

"The loss of the Friday state-based editions of 7.30 will impact on in-depth coverage of state issues, particularly at a time when other sources of local news in the commercial sector have dramatically reduced their reporter numbers and coverage. This is particularly worrying for coverage in NSW ahead of next year's state election.

"Staff have been told that 100 jobs are going from news and current affairs to be replaced by 70 new restructured positions that will no doubt involve multiple platform responsibilities.

"So journalists will be stretched even further to file stories for multiple locations with less and less time to do their investigating. This is disappointing in an industry which is seeing so much scaling back of professional inquiring journalism in commercial sectors.

"The reshaping of ABC operations to create two new divisions – regional and digital - within six months sounds like a strong response to a changing media sector. But I will be interested to see how it will operate, and how regional coverage by reporters living in the areas they report on will be affected by rationalisation."