ABC News 24 to launch next week
The ABC has finally set a launch date for ABC News 24.
It starts broadcasting at 7.30pm next Thursday July 22 with the first hour simulcast on ABC1.
ABC boss Mark Scott announced it in a tweet this afternoon:
“ABC News 24 – to start broadcasting on Thursday 22nd July at 7.30pm. On TV, online and on mobile.”
When Scott spoke to Mumbrella about his ambitions for ABC News 24 in May he said it would be a different offering to Sky News, which he described as an aggregator. He said:
“Our service will reflect the breadth and depth of reporting talent that bwe have locally nationally and internationally. Sky doesn’t have that depth of reporting talent.”
The service, produced from the ABC’s Ultimo studios in Sydney – will be available on Freeview. However, it will not be available to all Foxtel subscribers – only those who subscribe to the Foxtel HD service. This is because the ABC has placed ABC News 24 on what was its HD channel.
ABC News Director, Kate Torney, said: “ABC News 24 will showcase the very best of the ABC’s journalism from Australia and around the world.”
ABC correspondents invovled in the launch night special include political editor Chris Uhlmann; foreign correspondents, Kim Landers and Phil Williams; regional affairs reporter Paul Lockyer; and from Asia, Stephen O’Donnell and Sally Sara.
It will also be streamed live on the web at abc.net.au/news, on iView at abc.net.au/iview and as an iPhone application available for free via iTunes.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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Can’t wait for this channel. It will be brilliant like most things the ABC’s done in recent years. The only real misstep I think it’s taken is ABC3.
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in fairness Rob, are you really ABC 3’s target market?
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I don’t have to be, in order to comment on it. Plus, given the short nature of my remark, you don’t even know what my actual beefs are with it to even make that comment.
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What a waste of the ABC resources and the HDTV transmission spectrum.
Haven’t people heard of getting their news from the internet.
ABC Tv are pathetic for local news, on weekends they use Nine, Seven sourced footage.
Thumbs down.
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@Bob H
I’m sure I’m not the only one out there who lives for news.(Well, hopefully…) More news, more often makes me one happy camper, especially (oh, in my fondest dreams) if this new ABC service offers me a tolerable alternative morning news show. I can’t wait to have a news service on the bigscreen while I use my internet access for timely services like twitter, facebook and email sources as well as examining any item that grabs me in detail, without having to disable that background source. (This, BTW, is my gripe with iThings – I need multitaking, dammit!)
Bring it on, ABC, I’ll take all you can give me 🙂
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hmmm….that would be “…multitasking, dammit.” I’m not really trying to steal multiple items 🙂
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Bob H, clearly many, many people HAVE heard of getting their news from the Internet – just look at the monthly uniques for news sites on Nielsen’s NetView.
But the thing is, more people around Australia still prefer to watch their news on the goggle-box. If you add up all the audience figures for all the news programmes in the Metro markets for last week you get 87million gross audience (obviously most people watch more than one bulletin in a week).
Let’s also not forget that a lot of people still get their news by reading it in a newspaper. That is why there are 16.8 million newspapers SOLD in Australia every week – and that is just counting the Nationals and Metros and none of the Regionals and Community newspapers.
You just happen to not be one of those people which is fine and dandy by me.
And Rob Irwin, I am intrigued as to what your beef is with ABC3. Care to elucidate any further? I would have thought that a dedicated FTA kids channel would be seen to be a good idea by most people.
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