Three female directors on the board of national broadcaster the ABC have been replaced by two male former media executives and a female communications and IT specialist.

Mario D’Orazio and Peter Tonagh both look back on long media careers, Tonagh spending more than 13 years in various News Corp roles, including as chief executive of its Australian entity and subsidiaries Foxtel and REA.

D’Orazio spent 30 years with Kerry Stokes’ Channel 7 Perth, eight of them as managing director.

The third non-executive director named by communications minister Paul Fletcher this morning, is Fiona Balfour, a “professional non-executive director” whose experience includes aviation, telecommunications, financial services and education, especially in IT.

They are appointed to five-year terms to succeed Kirstin Ferguson and Donny Walford whose terms expired in November, and Vanessa Guthrie who resigned in March.