Many ABC staff were unable to squeeze into the meeting at ABC's Eugene Goosens Hall at 11 am Monday to learn their fate.
Instead they watched grimly from their offices via the intranet as managing director Mark Scott spelled out his plan to make redundant 400 staff, many before Christmas. The cuts are to meet the federal government's demand for a budget cut of $207 million over four years, and at the same time fund the ABC board and management's vision of the ABC's digital future.
There were no tears or angry remonstrations from staff. There was only time for three or four questions before staff were directed to briefings in their departments, where further and better particulars of the compulsory redundancies were spelled out.
The ABC's news division has been hit particularly hard by the Abbott government's budget cuts, with an estimated 100 job losses expected and changes to flagship programs and news bulletins.
Respected television programs including Four Corners, Australian Story, Foreign Correspondent, Landline and the fact checking unit will lose resources, with full details to emerge over coming days.
All radio news bulletins will be reduced to five minutes, except the 7am and 7.45am updates and Triple J's bulletins.
Other programs in the firing line had been well speculated upon: the state-based 7.30 programs, Radio National's Bush Telegraph, a move for Lateline to News 24, consolidation of the foreign bureaux into hubs and a myriad of savings through efficiencies in administration.
Among the most contentious of these will be the closure of the production facility in Adelaide, which has raised the ire of Liberal cabinet minister, Christopher Pyne.
In Canberra, Mr Abbott rejected suggestions from Labor that he'd broken election promises on public broadcasting as well as health and education cuts and changes to the pension.
Mr Abbott argued that "everyone" knew efficiency dividends would be applied across government and he had never said there would be "special treatment" for the ABC.
In question time, Labor tried unsuccessfully to censure Prime Minister Tony Abbott for promising there would be no cuts to the ABC or SBS.
"He is a narrow man," Labor leader Bill Shorten said. "He has no ideology other than extremism."
Around the country meanwhile, the painful process of showing people the door unfolded.
Administrative staff slated for redundancy were given their five minutes of bad news as early as 8am in individual meetings. Others were called in during the day. But it was not until the departmental briefings that "the rubber really met the road," staff said.
In the News and Current Affairs briefing at 1pm, ABC news director Kate Torney told staff that 100 positions would go from newsrooms around the country. There would, however, be 70 new staff hired to expand the ABC's digital services. For example, there will be some loss of jobs in overseas bureaux, but there will also be hiring of VJs, or video journalists, with skills to film, report and write.
"'They have drunk the digital cool-aid," said one long-time ABC reporter. "There was very little talk about quality. My fear is the emphasis will be on churnalism, not journalism," she said.
But as Ms Torney put it: "Success involves a delicate balance: providing new services for growing online and mobile audiences while continuing to deliver the television and radio programming that is already highly valued by millions of Australians. We have developed a clear plan to ensure we are as relevant and valuable in 2020 as we are today."
Most of the questions focussed on how the ABC would continue to be a major player in the coverage of state politics and issues without the state-based current affairs programs.
Ms Torney reassured staff that important state issues and investigations would be accommodated within local news programs or on national 7.30. But when asked whether they would run seven-minute segments, the staple of the state 7.30s, Ms Torney suggested that perhaps it would be possible to accommodate interviews or investigations over three nights in shorter segments.
Adam Harvey, a television reporter with the 7.30 Report, said the job cuts "will have a huge impact" on ABC programming and staff.
"There is a lot of money going out of the ABC, a lot of jobs going. It was a very sad day," he said. "Everybody here knows that this amount of money and this amount of staff going out of the ABC will result in a poorer product."
Staff have been placed in "pools" where their skills will be audited over coming days to determine who will stay or go.
Four Corners staff will learn the nitty-gritty of cuts on Wednesday. Staff expect the travel budget to be slashed, the possible loss of researchers. There remains a question mark over whether presenter, Kerry O'Brien will stay.
Other high-profile staff, such as Ticky Fullerton at Lateline Business, are likely to be redeployed into new business news bulletins.
In Radio National staff piled into the library at 2pm for a more detailed briefing which revealed that several features programs such as Hindsight, 360 and Encounter will face the chop.
These one-hour radio documentary shows will be replaced with shorter programs during the day.
