News Corp papers this morning backed up the government’s cuts to the ABC with an “exclusive” reheat of seven-month old figures on senior ABC salaries, consultancies and bonuses, first published in the ABC’s annual report way back in last October.

If the government’s 12-month early announcement of the impending ABC funding freeze was a pre-election message of support to the media oligopolies, today’s News Corp reports can be read as a clear response: “message received!”

The Daily Telegraph in Sydney and the Herald Sun in Melbourne puffed the “exclusive” story out of the group’s Canberra bureau on page 1, spilling to page 11 in the Tele and page 6 in the Herald Sun. Although the story itself was relatively straight, the headlines were clear. In the Tele for instance: “Amazing Bloody Cheek” across the top of the page, with the kicker: “Public broadcaster doles out $2.6m in bonuses while crying poor”.

In the Courier Mail, it couldn’t compete with the all-angles coverage of the representative retirement of Queensland Rugby League captain Cameron Smith which took up pages 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 and 7 of the Brisbane paper, before it even got to the sports pages at the back of the book. The ABC salaries exclusive was cut to four pars on the not-Cameron-Smith-news page 3.

The Australian ran a similar story, sourced to the Herald Sun, down the side of page 3 under the relatively sober heading: “ABC paid $2.6m in bonuses to staff”.

Journalistically, it’s always fun to poke media bosses for their salaries and bonuses. But the ABC’s defence is that, according to an ABC spokesperson: “Remuneration rates for the ABC Leadership Team are benchmarked using an external, independent provider against market rates”. Bonuses, it says, are below market rates.

Although News Corp doesn’t generally reveal salaries and bonuses paid to its Australian editors and executives, it is the largest media employer in Australia. That means its executive salaries (which often include bonuses) largely set the market.

Along with all major media employers (including the ABC), News Corp has forced down market rates for journalists over the past decade. If they want to reshape ABC management salaries, they just need to force down those market rates as well.