Q+A, one of the ABC’s flagship current affairs and news programs, has been axed after 17 years on air.
The show went on a mid-year break in May and was scheduled to return in August, but sources confirmed it won’t be airing again.
It will come alongside a number of planned redundancies across the national broadcaster.
The ABC is set to announce the decision to discontinue the show on Wednesday, as first reported by Capital Brief.
Changes at the ABC come just months after Hugh Marks stepped into the role of managing director, succeeding David Anderson, who served for six years.
Marks had previously signaled a significant shake-up, describing the need for ‘a program of renewal and invigoration’ in comments he made back in December.
The show has come under fire over the last few years, after churning through different hosts following the departure of Tony Jones, who left in 2019.
Q+A has seen several changes in its hosting lineup, first with Hamish Macdonald, David Speers, Virginia Trioli, Stan Grant and most recently Patricia Karvelas taking over as host.
Patricia Karvelas (pictured) is the current full-time host of the show
The number of episodes was also cut by ABC staff in 2024, going from 40 episodes a year to just 24.
Q+A also was shifted from its usual slot of Monday night, to Thursday night, a move that was eventually reversed by the ABC.
The show has also seen its ratings collapse in the last five years.
From a peak 600,000 viewers in 2020, Q+A crashed to a low of just above 200,000 people tuning in across the five major capital cities in April 2021.
In August 2023, during the show’s ‘Garma Special’, Q+A received its lowest ratings ever, with fewer than 84,000 metro viewers.
Daily Mail Australia’s Political Editor Peter Van Onselen called out the show’s collapse in 2023 and said it would not be missed if it didn’t return to ABC’s roster in 2024.
In an opinion piece for The Australian, Van Onselen pointed out Q+A had received just 203,000 views nationally at that time.
‘With numbers this woeful coupled with how out of touch with mainstream Australia the program has become, it really needs to be put out of its misery,’ he wrote.
The ABC is yet to confirm publicly that the long-running show had been axed
‘There have been enough failed reboots to justify finally axing it.’
Van Onselen said cracks started to appear after Tony Jones stopped hosting after a decade in the role from 2008 to 2019.
‘It wasn’t all that long ago that the program was vibrant and interesting, with discussions well led by former host Tony Jones,’ he wrote.
‘I remember appearing on it at the time. Ratings regularly hit the one million mark, which precipitated the discussion about changing its time slot.’
Van Onselen lashed the show for not being informative enough and hosting discussions that were ‘one-sided, uninteresting and rarely funny’.
He claimed it was the ABC’s ‘stubbornness’ that was saving the show from being axed for good but that a replacement would be welcomed.
Q+A’s last episode was aired on May 19.
The news comes just one day after Network 10 cancelled The Project, co-hosted by short term Q+A star Hamish Macdonald.
Q+A has suffered a steep ratings decline since peaking at 600,000 viewers in 2020
Former Q+A host Hamish Macdonald (pictured) was on The Project, which was axed Monday
The show had been running for 16 years.
The news show, was in a ratings free-fall since Carrie Bickmore left her seat as host at the end of 2022.
It will wrap up in 3 weeks after airing more than 4500 episodes.
The ABC was contacted for comment by Daily Mail Australia.
