ABC Radio National launches first tablet magazine ‘White Paper’
ABC Radio National has launched the first tablet magazine to be published by the national broadcaster in a move that seeks to draw in an influential audience across all platforms.
White Paper, a monthly magazine launched on Friday, includes feature articles written by Radio National journalists drawing from the interviews and content created for their radio programs.
The magazine precedes the release of a longform tablet app to be launched by ABC Innovation later this year.
Michael Mason, acting manager of Radio National and group program director of ABC Radio, said the tablet magazine was a natural step for the station, moving its discussions from on air to listeners’ tablets and showcase the best in longform content for the month.
“It’s building the engagement and adding to the influence of a network like Radio National,” Mason told Mumbrella. “It’s a natural step for us to explore the concept of being an ideas network in other platforms. We already do podcasts and videos, and our content has been increasingly long-form pieces so it makes sense to reimagine them reversion them in a text form.
“We’re really about making sure we’re on the platform where audiences are going and to have a level of engagement around content online.”
In relation to the weekly longform app to be launched by ABC Innovation later this year, Mason said there will be healthy levels of cross-promotion between the two.
“The Longform app will be weekly and have a broader cross-section of topics and engage a wider range of audiences while ours is very much about the big think pieces that are ahead of the curve in many ways,” he said.
Take up of the app will be reviewed in three to four months time, Mason said, when they will look at setting benchmarks for download rates.
“The main thing is we want to reach audiences like the RN audience which is influential, so it not going to be about mass numbers,” Mason said. “We’re very confident that it will go well and our measures will be how its impacting the industry.”
Mason stepped in as acting manager of Radio National following the departure of former RN boss Louise Evans in November.
It can be downloaded form the Apple App Store and will soon be available via Google Play, and does not require an internet connection to read the content.
Megan Reynolds
It makes sense really. My 80+yo mum reads the paper on her ipad every day. She would definitely be in the demographic for watching ABC (they certainly do) so I can see this may appeal
I live remote in western Australia and can only get radio national late at night while standing on my head with the radio balanced precariously on my right foot! well not really but ican only catch a few programs at night and have only the local abc to listen to most of the time. I would love to be able to read the white paper so pls include me in any updates. I use a SURFACE tablet and hope that I can access it with this. I am only learning all this technology as I live in a tin shed and have only just got solar panels so I can now interact t with the rest of the world at my own pace. I don’t know what google play is but hope that you can let me know if I can access it . Thankyou.
What’s going on here? It’s an outrage, I tells ya. The ABC White Paper?
What about the ABC Black Paper?
And the ABC Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Paper?
This is SO NOT ABC. Time for everyone to be offended, and start litigation under section 18(c).