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Victoria wants to be home to ABC3

The Victorian Government says its strong track record in being home to kids' television means it deserves a new ABC3.

The Brumby Government wants a future headquarters of an ABC3, the prospective children’s channel, to be based in Victoria.

In its submission to the Federal Government’s review of the ABC and SBS, the stage government says it should host the channel because it is already home to the Australian Children’s Television Foundation and several leading independent children’s production companies.

“Victoria has a prolific history of developing award-winning, successful children’s programming,” the submission says.

“There is an opportunity for Victoria to be the home of ABC3, utilising local expertise to deliver content for the dedicated channel,” it says.

The submission cites Victorian productions such as Round the Twist, Saddle Club, Holly’s Heroes and Animalia, as well as Kids360°, an initiative being developed by Film Victoria, the ACTF and ABC.

Victoria is also home to Jonathan M. Shiff Productions which produced Elephant Princess, Thunderstone and Wicked Science plus GalaxyPop which produced RockIt!.

There has been speculation that the dedicated kids channel will be one of several 2020 Summit ideas adopted by the Federal Government.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the Government was still considering its response to the summit.

Funding for an ABC3 channel hinges on the May budget.

Source: The Age

15 Responses

  1. An American channel wouldn’t even be possible, in terms of kids channels. All all Disney content goes to Seven, all Warner Brothers (and Cartoon Network) content goes to Nine (and is frequently wasted) and Nickelodeon content is currently split been ABC & Ten. It would be good if the ABC could license a library of good shows though, many older cartoon series, are so much better, than what is currently available.

    In terms of Australian content, the ABC funded/produced Blue Water High and Escape from Scorpion Island last year. All the other Australian content, had already been shown by other (free to air) TV networks. A good reason, Australian content requirements should be scrapped in my opinion.

    People are negative, because the ABC can’t even manage to get enough new childrens programming on the ABC1, while the ABC2 continues to show almost all repeats (mainly recent series). Several regular cartoon series (Avatar – The Last Airbender and Fairly Odd Parents) didn’t even get new seasons last year.

    The plan was to have 50% Australian content on the ABC3 kids channels, which would even mean more endless repeats. Driving even more kids, away from the ABC channels.

  2. everyone is so negative i say a childrens channel run by our ABC has got to be a good thing if its set up in victoria so be it
    Now for seven and nine pull your finger out and get on with multi channeling or the government should bring on a 4th commercial network

  3. But that is exactly th point Paul, it will free up ABC2 for non-children programming during the day.

    And when the hell are 7 and 9 going to annoice their plans..

  4. @Andrew B said “Whether they use them or not, they should be allowed up to 4.”

    Why? Use them properly or lose them I say. Who says we only have to have 3 commercial channels too – Give them to new players like community TV perhaps?

  5. If they just played repeats of Round the twist then the channel would be good, Otherwise there’s no point because ABCTwo has ABC kids stuff during the day all the time.

  6. Pretty much nobody watches ABC or ABC2, so whats the point of the new channel? And I agree with John that american channels such as Disney will be picked before an australian channel. Plus a lot of the shows listed in this article are not on the ABC, so ABC3 would not be able to airs these anyway. And when watching ABCkids, there are no good shows, and basically all the shows are repeats. Any new shows to the ABC have generally been aired on another network (for example, Mortified was on channel nine at least twice before it moved to ABC).

    ABC needs to improve their existing channels before moving onto new productions.

    They are like those husbands that start something and then never complete it.

  7. I really have to wonder why the 2020 Summit is mentioned in that article, the idea of an ABC3 kids channel was around before the last federal election, and long before that useless 2020 Summit.

    Australia continues to fail to produce decent childrens programming, especially lacking in terms of good (and intelligent) story telling. All recent cartoon series (Animalia, Dex Hamilton, Dogstar, Master Raindrop, Zeke’s Pad) have been terrible, with cliched stories, repetitive stories, ripoff series, stupid characters and poorly animated (CGI) series.

    The ABC fails to even provide enough new content to fill their currently childens timeslots on the ABC1 and ABC2 channels.

  8. Does it really matter where the buttons are pushed and external production contracts are signed? As far as I can see, that’s the only significance of the channel headquarters. Whether ABC3 is based in Sydney, Melbourne, Broken Hill or wherever, it won’t have any impact on what is shown or who is contracted to produce content. It’s a purely administrative decision.

    This is the sort of petty nonsense we’ve come to expect from the Victorian government, but really, come on.

  9. And while we are at it, how come ABC can have ABC3 and potentially ABC4 yet commercial networks only allowed on extra SD channel? Whether they use them or not, they should be allowed up to 4.

  10. So Victoria wants ABC3 to be based in Melbourne to utilize local expertise to deliver content for the dedicated channel. Imagine if the Sydney based ABC1 & ABC2 had a similar philosophy? The list of Victorian projects cited as “evidence” may never have seen light of day.
    I don’t care where ABC3 is based, but it should be about providing television for children not opportunities for the state in which it is based.

  11. The sad truth is kids will always pick American high quality cartoons and live action children’s programming over Australian any day.

    The new channel would do best with old ABC properties like Rocko’s Modern Life, Fairly Odd Parents and if they were really smart buy out Spongebob from Ten.

  12. With most of the national media based in Sydney (Including ABC1 and ABC2) I too agree ABC3 should be based in Victoria.

    There is already too much of a Sydney voice in our media.

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