ABC Audio Closes
Now here's a story I never thought I'd write....
One of Australia's major sources for creating audio books has been closed. ABC Commercial has decided the Audio Book section isn't creating enough profit. The section has finished as of the end of June, however, work stopped on projects around six weeks ago. ABC Commercial says that the losses suffered by Audio Books impact on their ability to make television, radio and online programmes.
There has been an outcry in parts of the country especially from those with vision impairment. Actually, 17% of the population suffers from what is called; print disability and they depend on audio books as an important source of entertainment.
Some authors also depend on audio books as an addition to their income. Although not sold in great numbers, as any writer, composer, producer will tell you, it all helps to make up for the long hours put in to create the story.
There are a few disgruntled authors who had work in progress, some almost finished, that will now never see the light of day. Some of these authors are trying to get the rights back from ABC Commercial in the hope of releasing the books via another distributor.
Hullabaloo has had a ten-year relationship with ABC Audio. I couldn't really say how many titles we have been involved with over that time, but it would be safe to say in excess of three hundred. We were involved in recording the actors, editing the voice, adding sound effects and writing the music. To add up the recording and editing hours would sum to a huge figure. Many, and I mean many titles, had 24-30hours of recorded time, which was then edited down to 10-14hours as a finished product. We would have performed literally millions of edits.
I had a quick look through our archive of music for ABC Audio. There’s a lot. Some books required forty plus stings used to conclude chapters and there were other titles like the “Deltora” series which had fifteen books. And then there were children’s books, “Playschool”, “Bear in the Big Blue House”, “Angelina Ballerina”, “Children’s Meditations”, just to name a few, scored from beginning to end. We have composed thousands of pieces of music.
We did a story last year on how to make an audio book. Check it out.
Although the close doesn’t really affect Hullabaloo, as recording was taken in house about eighteen months ago, (we continued to write all the music) it’s a great shame that Australian authors won’t get that added support that ABC Audio offered. And it’s very sad that another avenue of hearing Australian content is now cut away.
But the saddest part of all is the fact that the staff that ran ABC Audio are out of a job. We’ve had the pleasure of working with some very talented people over the years and we’ll miss working with them in the future. Hopefully, they will find employment where they can continue to create wonderful audio books.
We wish all the staff the best for the future and thanks so much for being part of Hullabaloo. We’ve had a lot of laughs. A special thanks to Bernadette Neubecker, who took Glenn’s call all those years ago and started the relationship.
You know, the stupid thing is, that since the advent of the iPod, audio books sales have increased dramatically. Audible.com does huge business selling audio books as does AudioBooksonline.com. Bernadette had been trying for years to get the ABC to upload and sell their books. That didn't happen and now look what has happened.