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A-PAC Channel nears

Newly retitled public affairs channel, A-PAC, is due to launch on January 20th.

New public affairs channel, A-PAC, is due to launch soon on Foxtel and Austar.

The not-for-profit, independent channel, has already undergone a name change from A-SPAN, but has been promised to launch January 20th, in time for the Obama Inauguration.

The channel will feature complete sittings from the federal house, the senate, and hearings plus question time from NSW, Victoria and Queensland state parliaments. Other states will follow.

In addition to interviews with politicians it will also have a dedicated evening programme and incorporate the National Press Club, the Sydney Institute, the Institute of Public Affairs, the Business Council of Australia and various universities.

A-PAC will be an international affiliate of America’s C-SPAN and screen parliament sessions from the UK and New Zealand It will also broadcast live footage from the United Nations and the European Parliament.

Surprisingly, A-PAC generated content will also screen in the USA on C-SPAN.

The channel will screen on subscription TV, online, mobile phones and be made available for Free to Air.

A-PAC is funded entirely by Foxtel and Austar.

19 Responses

  1. How can I obtain a DVD of your wonderful coverage of my brother Bud Tingwell’s State Funeral on Wednesday 20 May 2009 in Melbourne. I was one of the speakers and my family would love to have copy of the whole service if possible.

    Patrick Tingwell ( in Sydney)

  2. They should put it onto SBS-2 or ABC-3 or 4 for the time being. That’d get the channel on FTA for everyone who has digital. A quick agreement with ABC or SBS would sort that easily. Even when I lived in Sydney the signal strength of digital 44 was quite low and would drop out – and that’s not outer suburbs, that was Bankstown area.

  3. I hope that this will end up on D44 like NITV, Expo and Australian Christian Channel have. D44 already has federal parliamentary coverage, but it’s incredibly low picture quality, and it doesn’t have state parliament or the other public affairs stuff that A-PAC promises.

  4. thank you for your quick response David, u seem to care more about getting me and many others the answer to this question more than optus does, several times when i have emailed optus about this and other questions they have either never got back to me, took several day to to so or gave me an answer that has nothing to do with what i asked, compare this with tv tonight where i got an answer with an hour, seem optus just don’t care about there customers questions, wish they could be more like tv tonight

  5. Optus TV? They don’t even reply to me! I’m not convinced they are serious about their product. If someone within Optus cares to convince me otherwise, shoot me a contact please.

    No it’s not on the EPG yet.

  6. does anyone now if a-pac will also be available on optus tv, i have emailed optus several times but received no reply, is it appearing in the foxtel epg yet cause it not on optus.

  7. I cannot wait for this channel to begin. We should of had this up and running years ago. I am really looking forward to the broadcasting of the state parliaments especially of my home state of New South Wales. I have been saying for years that we should be able to view state parliament sessions.

    But what I think is really exciting, as David mentions above, is that A-PAC generated content will also screen on C-SPAN. Giving those who are overseas a chance see to Australian democracy in action.

    In answer to your question John, yes A-PAC will be available on digital FTA TV. Presumably, that is why they dropped “subscription” from their name.

  8. “..and be made available for Free to Air.”

    Does that mean we will see it as a new separate free-to-air channel if they get a licence or just that they will be selling their material/shows to the commercial channels if they want it?

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