ABC will launch Australia’s first free-to-air 24-hour television news channel later this year. The ABC’s Managing Director, Mark Scott, said the ABC’s commitment to quality news and current affairs would enter a new era with the creation of the new digital channel.
The channel will provide live continuous news coverage of major breaking stories from Australia and around the world. Broadcasting around the clock will enable the ABC to increase its in-depth coverage of local, national and international affairs through background features and analysis, combined with the ABC’s long-form current affairs reporting.
New programmes are being developed specifically for the channel, focusing on world news, national politics and business. Many of the ABC’s existing television news and current affairs programs will also be featured.
A continuous news centre with a new state-of-the-art studio, in the foyer of the ABC’s Ultimo headquarters, will serve as the engine room of the new channel. The ABC will also take advantage of its multi-platform capabilities, ensuring that audiences are able to keep up to date with news developments in different formats and across an array of devices. The ABC’s capacity to “go live” with in-depth, continuous news coverage will extend to Australia Network, ensuring the ABC’s audiences in 44 countries also benefit from the new channel.
The channel will commence with no additional funds from the Government for content. Significant changes the ABC has made to news and television production processes, taking advantage of new technology, will allow the broadcaster to reinvest in new programming.
The news channel will be launched on the ABC’s HD channel, adding to the suite of services offered by the broadcaster on ABC1, ABC2 and ABC3. Further details of the new channel, including the program schedule and launch date, will be outlined in coming months.
(Source: ABC Online)
on Jan 21st, 2010 at 17:35
> The news channel will be launched on the ABC’s HD channel,
Huh ? This doies’nt make sense, are we to mean it will be in HD then ? Australia…always been years ahead of Britan technically
on Jan 21st, 2010 at 22:36
It’s only going on their HD channel as that is the only channel ABC can sensibly put a new channel on. Broadcasters in Australia have been allocated three SD and one HD channel each. The ABC have already launched a second general entertainment service and a children\’s service on their two new SD channels (the third carries the long-standing ABC (now ABC1) TV service.
I would imagine that the 24 hour news service will continue on the HD channel until analogue switch-off, when ABC1 will move to HD and 24 news will go onto SD. They will not want to do that at the moment as not everyone who has a digital receiver has one with HD capability.
on Jan 21st, 2010 at 23:21
Another waste of good sat bandwidth….wonder if they are going to be worldwide or just domestic with this.
on Jan 21st, 2010 at 23:29
Would hardly say it’s a waste of bandwidth, the UK has about 50 shopping channels now THAT’S bandwidth being wasted. 24/7 News is essential and about time too down under but it should be online and worldwide also, we get little enough news about Australia / NZ here in Europe / UK
on Jan 22nd, 2010 at 00:09
Hi all,
As somebody who lives in Australia I can probably cast some light on this story. I believe this move has been coming for a while.
The ABC started a “News Radio” service about a decade ago, which is now broadcast virtually nationally via medium wave. It originally was created as a service to occupy the channel originally created for the “parliamentary broadcast network” to fill programme when parliament or it’s committees were not sitting.
Taking this to a television service is a logical extension. I suspect the radio and TV operations will be sharing a lot of the news gathering and editorial resources, if not the presentation - although, I think with a bit of creativity, they could even merge this.
As to how it will be broadcast, the comment about HD I think primarily reffers to our national DVB-T arrangements here in Australia. All the “freeView” (ie: free to air) digital broadcasters in this country have adopted a similar usage of their available channel data bandwidth, broadcasting 2 or 3 SD channels (576i) and 1 psuedo “HD” (720p) channel.
ABC already has their 3 SD channels “fully populated”. ABC1 is traditional ABC programme content and simulcast on the analogue TV channels until they are switched off in 2013, ABC2 is the “kids” channel, and ABC3 was launched in December 2009 for “youth (school age)”, so the only free space left is the “HD” channel, which currently spends most of it’s time rebroadcasting the ABC1 SD stream. ie: HD currently retransmits ABC1 programme.
As to what arrangements will be made for desiminating the new “news” channel to overseas markets, nothing has yet been said.
Hope this info helps clear up any misconceptions.
Calvin.
on Jan 22nd, 2010 at 12:19
All very logical and reasonable they way broadcaters are aloocated channels, not like the mess it is here with Sky (satelite) dominating any new HD channels with 95% of them being subscription ones