Among the broader changes announced on Thursday, the role of political editor was scrapped, with high-profile reporter Andrew Probyn made redundant. State news bulletins on Sunday night will be replaced with one national bulletin.

ABC managing director David Anderson justified the changes to staff in an email on Thursday as necessary for the broadcaster’s future, as the organisation needed to boost its investment in its digital transformation to meet the needs of its audiences.

A spokesperson for the ABC insisted that journalists currently employed in the arts team would be redeployed to the newly created Art, Music, and Events department, but that was disputed by those with knowledge of the changes.

While Art Works staff will move to the new unit, the internal document sighted by this masthead makes it clear that the workload of what was the ABC’s dedicated online arts team will now be “managed from the Digital Innovation team”. ABC sources said that meant journalists from the general reporting pool will be expected to generate occasional arts stories, but without a specialist editor. It was unclear what the changes meant for reviews of films, performing arts and literature, which were previously managed by the standalone arts unit.

One insider, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the move was a bad result for arts lovers, as it left the ABC with no senior dedicated specialists in the area.

Arts coverage is ostensibly core business for the ABC. Under its charter, it is required to “encourage and promote the musical, dramatic and other performing arts in Australia”. A series of cuts over the past decade, however, have seen its capacity to cover the area vastly reduced. At the same time, audiences for its limited output have dwindled.

The most recent episode of Art Works, the ABC’s only regular arts program, was watched by just 108,000 people nationally on Sunday June 11, making it the 85th most-viewed program on the day.

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