Quantum will still be on air as the last programs of it are still in the making and are to be shown as scheduled. Some members

W: We have the news this morning that Quantum will no longer be seen on television on ABC television. Can you tell us the official reason why?
M: Quantum will be seen on ABC television next year. The remaining programs in the series will go to air and are still being made in fact. I think the series will continue until about May, so I’d like to think that viewers will continue to watch it until that point rather than thinking it’s unfair. Quantum has been around now for about 16 years. It’s presented itself in various guises over the years. It’s been a magazine program. It’s been a documentary program. It had more reinventions than most television programs could ever imagine. But there comes a time in any program’s life when it has reached its use-by date. And my feeling and the feeling of others with an ABC science is that it could well be the title of the program Quantum. That’s holding back more innovative and relevant science programing on ABC television. We are going to rest for a while as a title and hopefully build up some new and more exciting and more dynamic style of science television programing in its place.
W: Will it be out-sourced?
M: I mean this is a bit of nonsense. That’s going around at the moment. ABC television makes science programs in-house. We also commission programs from independent producers. The program that we will follow Quantum at its time slot is a series on stress. I think it’s a six parts series, which was part of our contestable process. We have an opportunity for both independence and in-house producers to bid for those contestable programs. It’s part of our transparent process of program choice so that there is fairness. That program was selected by the former commissioning editor and I can only imagine it was because it was the best program that was submitted. We were also in the process of developing and negotiating some quite significant output deals and output deal means that we would make programs for other distribution agencies as well as ourselves.
W: What will happen to the in-house people?
M: We are hoping there will be more in-house production rather than less. Really what we have to do is we can’t continue to make Quantum and spend most of our budget on Quantum and still make new and more exciting programs. I mean we need to redirect that money and reallocate those funds so that we can freshen up the science late for ABC. I mean we are absolutely committed to science programing on ABC television.
W: Will there be any jobs lost from Quantum production union?
M: We were hoping to get up some news programs in the near future so some of those people may be able to be redeployed. There are some very talented staff that we would like to talk to about moving into the development unit.
W: Listeners wonder if we can be sure that an out-sourced science program will be completely accurate and unbiased or not have any sort of input from a corporate source in any way.
M: We have very strong editorial policies and guidelines that are to be followed. Any program that’s made by independent producer outside of ABC is matched by an ABC executive producer who is there to represent those policy issues.
W: So ABC’s commitment to science is not diminished.
M: Not only it is not diminished, it’s actually stronger. That’s where we would like to think we are heading. The managing director has attempted to get more government funding so that we can actually achieve that.