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Staff exodus continues at ABC Oz

The second highest ranked executive at Australian pubcaster ABC is quitting, becoming the latest in a string of high-level managers to leave.

David Pendleton

David Pendleton

Chief operating officer David Pendleton’s announcement that he is stepping down after 21 years with ABC comes one week after director of TV Richard Finlayson resigned.

Lynley Marshall, CEO of ABC International, the multi-platform media service in Asia and the Pacific, leaves next week. Angela Clark, director of ABC’s digital division, departed last September.

The exits of Pendleton and Finlayson are believed to be linked to a wide-ranging management restructure being planned by ABC MD Michelle Guthrie. Both Marshall and Clark have secured positions outside the broadcast industry.

Soon after she was appointed as the ABC’s first ever female MD last year, the former Google and Star TV exec made no secret of her desire to overhaul the cumbersome management structure.

Pendleton, Finlayson and Marshall are members of the 14-person ABC executive headed by Guthrie.

Last November the MD told staff she had hired Jim Rudder, a former Foxtel exec and advisor to Fox Sports in the US and the UK’s Sky, and Debra Frances, a business transformation expert, as consultants.

Their brief is to help devise strategies to improve content planning and operational performance.

Guthrie is unlikely to embark on wholesale changes until the government appoints a successor to outgoing ABC chairman Jim Spigelman. Applications for the chairman’s position closed today.

However, Guthrie is understood to be looking at appointing a chief content officer who would oversee the TV, radio and digital divisions.

That structure would rule out the need for a COO and the TV director post, which Finlayson is vacating in March. He said he was leaving, after less than four years in the post, because he wanted to “move on to the next stage of my career,” but he gave no clues about his next venture.

Pendleton, who has been COO since 2004, has served four MDs: Guthrie, Mark Scott, Russell Balding and Jonathan Shier. He will stay on until the end of June to help prepare for the next budget and the transition to the new financial and operational leadership.

He said: “It has been a privilege and an honour to contribute to Australia’s most respected media organisation. I am proud of my team’s achievements during my time here as we have evolved from an analogue to a digital broadcaster.

“Despite the many challenges, we have continued to innovate and provide outstanding service to the Australian public. I am confident that I leave the ABC in great shape with its best years ahead.”

Guthrie made no comment but the ABC issued a statement that said the broadcaster acknowledges the pivotal role Pendleton has played in shaping ABC’s operational base and in its digital expansion.

The statement added: “He has provided outstanding service to a succession of ABC boards and managing directors and his operational knowledge and financial expertise will be sorely missed.”

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