It started back in May last year and may not finish for another couple of years but the “strategic review” of ABC Radio commissioned by its, Director, Kate Dundas, could have far reaching implications for the commercial sector and ABC loyalists alike – albeit for different reasons.

According to an article in The Australian, “Insiders suggest the ABC looks admiringly at the British public broadcaster’s more coherent radio network structure and ability to attract more than half the British radio market, led by Radio 2. This compares unfavourably with the ABC, which manages a broad 20 per cent market share and has little audience moving from youth station Triple J to Local Radio, Radio National, News Radio or even Classic FM.”

In perhaps an effort to enlist the support of commercial radio for the campaign The Australian has been running on behalf of its owner to challenge the ABC’s establishment of a 24 hour television news channel that will compete with News Ltd’s Sky News, the paper went on to suggest “Talkback radio could also be targeted, as the ABC is believed to be looking at the potential of a national news and talk network, probably aligned with new TV news channel ABC4, (sic) while giving an even more parochial focus to ABC Local Radio.”

Ms Dundas for her part says “In terms of the networks there’s no plan to do anything radical to the network structure, but it’s all part of the three-year strategy, which is not a secret and is quite overtly saying we want to look at content gaps and overlaps, and audience gaps and audience overlaps and, looking into the future, what is the best way to serve the whole of the ABC audience.”

However it is understood that the ABC’s so-called youth network triple j, whose audience has an average age of 34 and commands a greater share of 40-54’s than it does 10-17’s, has been earmarked for a complete programming overhaul so that it competes more directly with Austereo’s Today and dmg’s Nova networks.