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ABC announces 24/7 News channel

The ABC has announced it will launch a 24-hour news channel in 2010, to air via its current ABC HD channel.

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The ABC has announced it will launch a 24-hour television news channel in 2010.

To broadcast on the current ABC HD channel, the news service will effectively become a Free to Air competitor to Sky News, and launches without any additional funds from the Government.

With a with a new state-of-the-art studio in the foyer of the ABC’s Ultimo headquarters, the channel will provide live continuous news coverage of major breaking stories from Australia and around the world.

“No media organisation in the country is better equipped to deliver this channel than the national broadcaster,” Managing Director Mark Scott said.

“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.”

New programs are being developed in world news, national politics and business, while existing television news and current affairs programs will also feature.

Audiences in 44 countries will also benefit from the new channel via the Australia Network.

ABC News Director Kate Torney said,“ABC journalists around the country and around the world produce hours of original, quality content each day. The news channel will give Australians more flexible access to our best reporting and analysis, along with an opportunity to watch breaking news as it happens.”

ABC is yet to indicate how this impacts on current HD programming of other shows.

79 Responses

  1. Yes, great news. Finally a FTA news channel.

    They can change the HD channel to an SD channel, therefore freeing up more bandwidth for the other 3 SD channels.

    Then when analogue is switched off they can think of having a HD channel. At the moment the HD channel is pretty useless as very very little native HD content is shown on this channel.

  2. @Andrew: I agree…what I was getting at was that the HD channel should not be wasted on a 24/7 news channel.
    and it looks like it may get it’s own digital channel anyhows…

    @tomothy: hehe

  5. News Corps Fox News has competitors in CNN and MSNBC Stateside, and with BBC News in the UK against his Sky News. he can handle it.

    This is the best thing ever that could happen to force Sky News to lift their game.

    Those cocky untalented mediocre leaders at Sky finally have a competitor.

    Let the fun begin….

  6. Interesting from news.com.au – maybe ABCHD is safe…

    “The channel, expected to be on ABC4, will offer free-to-air audiences continuous coverage of breaking and live news, and will feature many of the station’s news programs such as The 7.30 Report and Lateline.”

  7. @quokka: You can’t force ABC1 to become a news channel as it is the primary analogue service and there are still many viewers who are not or can not access digital.

    @Ellis: one would hope that this channel will be live in real-time across Australia in the same way that ABC News Radio is.

  9. Wow, I’m suprised it is not a 24/7 News channel which is made up of episodes of childrens news show BTN.
    I dont see why the HD channel cant be the primary channel for all networks. We should not sell any SD-only boxes/TVs.

  10. We’ve been hearing about this for some time now- this is great news (pun!). ABCHD was a waste, especially since we see Sydney news in Melbourne…

    I don’t know exactly how these things work, but could they not split the channel into two SD channels, making way for an ABC5, if the gov’t allowed it?

  12. current HD content?? heh. the way HD is being treated on FTA at the moment currently it doesn’t really matter too much. until we get better digital TV tech like the UK, i’d rather see more new channels personally…

  13. I’m pretty sure that this channel was meant to be ABC4, and presumably SD, but that plan seems to have been thrown out the window. I don’t see the point of using their HD channel for it because not only does it prevent any other programme from being broadcast in HD, but it also means that not everyone will be able to receive it because up until now, HD just seemed like an unnecessary waste of money as it didn’t offer anything extra compared to SD. And anyway, how much of the content is going to be HD anyway? They might as well downgrade the channel to 576 for ABC2’s picture quality’s sake.

  15. Should be using ABC3. They already have enough animated pap and crap on ABC1 & ABC2 for kids. Can “mummy’s favourite baby sitter” ABC3 for this new channel.

  17. @gavin – One suggestion – carry Al Jazeera English overnight as done in NZ & Fiji. AJE is not just news bulleting but usually top class docs in the bottom half of the hour. It’s service is available free to broadcasters. also available free is DW-TV, France24, and PBS NewsHour (free from VOATV) – plus other free content.
    This is great news. They also have the large amount of news content on Australia Network to draw on, like “NewsHour with Jim Middleton” which goes out in the wee small hours AEST to service broadcasters from the Cook Islands to the Middle East. Plus all of AN’s half-hour bulletins.

  18. Will this be aired live in Perth as well? We are already stuck with delayed versions of the 7.30 Report, Lateline, Breakfast and others. I want to watch these live!

  21. Surely they can use material from ABC America, PBS (if SBS allows it), BBC News 24 (probably not BBC World), CBC Canada plus a myriad of other sources as well?

    I’d like to see them video record AM and PM plus some other radio current affairs programmes and show them as well, give mug punters a fascinating insight into what we poor radio people have to do to get things on the air! 😛

  22. I would say if anyone can do this it’s the ABC, of course it will rate higher than SkyNews for the simple reason its on FTA.

    I guess like TEN ABC HD will now be news 24/7 like ONE HD is 24/7 sports.

  24. Given that the existing 24 hour radio news channel only sources original material for about 115 hours a day and carries BBC evenings and overnight, how are they going to fill a (more costly) 24 hour TV news channel? The promo abc.net.au/news/video/newschannel/ talks about “more opportunities to see your favourite news programmes” but surely they need more than just repeats of the 7.30 Report to fill all that airtime?

  25. Wow! This is great news, though not totally unexpected.

    This will no doubt fuel Rupert’s hatred of public broadcasters even more as Sky News now has a full on competitor. Can we now expect to see ABC Breakfast moved onto this channel?

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