ABC’s Insiders program will be filmed in Canberra’s Northbourne studio from July after 21 years of production out of the ABC’s Southbank studio in Melbourne.
Viewers won’t notice the change of location but the program will make significant savings on its travel budget as the vast majority of guests on the Sunday morning show are flown in and put up overnight.
The Insiders host, David Speers, who replaced founding host Barrie Cassidy three years ago, moved back to Canberra from Melbourne last year.
In 2020 Speers relocated his family to Melbourne after 19 years in Canberra when he was working for Sky News Australia.
The deputy director of ABC news, Gavin Fang, told ABC staff the move to Canberra makes sense because it is a federal political show.
“About 70% of the program’s regular panelists are based in Canberra and this change would allow us to be more flexible and responsive to news events,” Fang said in an internal email seen by Guardian Australia.
“Insiders started in Melbourne more than 21 years ago and I know many people at Southbank have worked on the program or collaborated with the team – including me.
“Insiders is one of our most successful programs and we believe its future is best-served by taking it to the nation’s capital and home of the federal government, where the vast majority of our guests and panelists live and work.”
The executive producer of Insiders, Sam Clarke, will remain in Melbourne and fly to Canberra each week for the show.
A spokesperson for ABC News confirmed the move. “Canberra is where Australia’s big national decisions are made and where the decision-makers, and most of the Insiders guests and panelists, are based,” the spokesperson said.
“It makes sense for the program to be there, too. It means we are much closer to the action of Parliament House, as well as the press gallery, the public service, the diplomatic corps and defence.”
Two ABC Melbourne production jobs may be affected by the move.
Fang said the sports program that follows Insiders, Offsiders hosted by Kelli Underwood, would continue to be broadcast from Melbourne.
Melbourne is home to News Breakfast, The World, News Channel evenings and the new program The Pacific.
Insiders is the only ABC news and current affairs show which has grown its audience since 2019. It also has a healthy catch-up audience on iview after the broadcast.
Last year Insiders became the most-watched morning show on Australian TV, with a year-to-date average of 803,000 viewers.
The post-federal election special episode set records with a first-run audience of 1.2 million viewers and a total audience of 1.4 million.
