ABC announces dedicated news channel
Australia’s public broadcaster the ABC has announced the launch of a dedicated 24-hour news channel , with “no additional funds” from Government, instead utilising its existing infrastructure and production resources.
ABC MD Mark Scott said in a press release that no media organisation in Australia was better equipped to deliver this type of channel than the public broadcaster. Operations will begin later this year, and no additional Government funds have been allocated for content creation.
“We can draw on the investment already made in the ABC, through its major newsrooms in every state and territory, 12 international bureaux and 60 regional newsrooms, to deliver to Australians a top-quality 24-hour news service that is comprehensive, independent and up to the minute,” said Scott.
According to Scott, new technologies and “significant changes” to their production processes will allow the ABC to reinvest in new programming (world news, national politics and business), developed specifically for the channel.
The channel will also feature some of the ABC’s existing news/current affairs programs.
The channel will use the ABC’s existing HD channel in a move that addresses one of the hurdles highlighted by ABC TV boss Kim Dalton in an interview with Encore last year.
In October Dalton told Encore: “We can’t do that at the moment with the spectrum we have, we just don’t have the space to run it. That’s a discussion with government; we can only do that if we had more spectrum, and more resources as well,” he said.
Whilst a 24 hour news channel is desireable we in WA would gladly settle for an uptodate news service. The ABC midday report is usually 5 hours old before its shown. The stock market report is at least 4 hours old which is not a lot of use to anyone. The ABC needs to lift its game before embarking on more channels.
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Ken, I’m trying to find out whether the new channel will offer regional services and how much new content will be generated.