Government backs ABC3 Kids Channel
A greenlight turns on for ABC3, set to hit our screens before Christmas.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under News
The Rudd Government has committed to establishing a dedicated ABC children’s digital television channel, ABC3.
“The ABC has always played a strong role in Australia’s national identity and I expect the new children’s channel will provide significant cultural and social benefits for Australian children,” Senator Stephen Conroy said.
“This new digital channel will offer high-quality educational, commercial-free viewing options for Australian families.”
The Rudd Government’s commitment to a digital ABC children’s channel forms part of the government’s response to the Australia 2020 Summit. It was flagged prior to the last federal election with a re-election commitment by the Howard Government, but was put on the backburner by the new government. Funding will not be announced until the budget next month, expected to cost between cost $25 – $30 million a year.
The new digital channel will be the only dedicated children’s channel available free to Australian homes and will operate in addition to existing children’s programming on ABC1 and ABC2 until the analogue switch over.
“The ABC Children’s Channel will broadcast child-appropriate content for 15 hours per day and will be complemented by a variety of interactive elements and online content.”
It is expected to be on air before Christmas.
33 Responses
as a parent, the best thing about this is more children’s content with No Advertising!!!! My 7 year old watches mostly foxtel kids channels, which apart from CBeebies all have advertising at various times for junk food and nauseating toys, which is just not fair – kids don’t need to be bombarded with it. The four year old watches more ABC Kids tv, so having a dedicated channel with content for various age groups will be fantastic. Bring it on!!
This news is great. David do you know if there is a fta music channel in the pipeline if yes could you let us know? i know that i along with the other teens and other young adults will be very interested in it. Since the majority of the pay tv uptake is mainly driven by teens, kids & sport lovers.
There isn’t….
Good news. I agree with the mostly posative response in these comments. It would be interesting what they did with the station overnight. Perhaps it could be a shortfilm channel, JTV chanel, art chanel or Rage Channel.
dragonchik:
Yes, Seven have had the rights to Disney content for as long as I have watched TV. I still remember when Disney content used to be shown at night on the weekend on Seven, long before Saturday Disney was around.
I recall Lizzie McGuire been shown on the ABC in the past, but that seems to be the only exception. Never seen any animated movie/series from Disney, been shown on a different channel though.
I can’t see Seven wanting to sell off the rights to any Disney content in the future, especially since Disney doesn’t even make as many kids movies/series for TV anymore.
There is still a lot of quality kids TV shows around, even excluding all Disney and Warner Brothers content.
So, Channel 7, what were you doing again??
Hopefully ABC wil finally air the remainder of season 3 of Degrassi TNG, as well as season 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8!
I guess all the whingers wondering why do kids get a funded chnanel is because they are the ones who’ll be paying for your unfunded pension and inadequate super 20-30 years from now.
At least the government are looking ahead unlike half the comments here who are cheeky enough to complain how kids programming gives them less to watch – move that butt and get a life to that lot
The digital television rollout in Australia continues at a snail’s pace…
kirben, has that always been the case because i know 7 has had the disney deal for ages and i can remember watching high profile disney channel shows like lizzie mcguire years ago on abc. i always though ABC bought whatever 7 wanted to sell them.
Good news indeed! Now we wait eagerly for ABC4 24 Hour News channel – that would be so freakin’ awesome! 😀
I hope this means ABC2 will be an adult channel now with no childrens programming. Eventually you’d hope ABC Breakfast will move from ABC2 > ABC1 as childrens would be accessible 24/7 on ABC3 anyway.
great news abc3 cool
So now the government is is doing a better job with freeview than the commercial networks now i want ABC4 the news channel when could this happen
David?
Come on channel 7 pull your finger out
Good news ABC 🙂
dragonchik :
Disney content always goes to Seven, and actually shown on the channel regularly. No chance of that changing.
Warner Brothers content always goes to Nine, who frequently let rights expire, rather than showing their cartoon series. Unfortunately no chance of that changing either.
The ABC already show many series (Avatar – The Last Airbender, Fairly Odd Parents, Iron Man: Armored Adventures, Wolverine And The X-Men) from Nickelodeon, although it would be good to see more (ie Danny Phantom). But it takes the ABC far too long to buy new seasons of many Nickelodeon series lately.
Great! Now where they going to put it?
There isn’t room in ABC’s mux for yet another channel. They can’t fit 3 SDs and an HD, you could arguably make the case that there isn’t really room for 2, with ABC2 and OneSD looking as poor as they do.
great news. but i hope this means better kids shows. my kids are always talking about how all the good american cartoons/shows are on pay tv. ABC needs to get more nikelodeon, disney off 7 and WB off 9 instead of the low budget new zealand shows and BBC57shows.
generally i do support NZ/british shows over american ones, but when it comes to kids shows no one does it like the americans
Well done ABC, i bet you it will launch in regional areas before ONE does.
The ABC already shows 12 hours of kids programming a day, although this will allow more variety of programming on the ABC2.
I wonder if the ABC will actually provide kids programming at later times (After 6:00 PM). Since the ABC changed the timeslot of Rollercoaster on the ABC2 from 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM to 3:00 PM to 4:30 PM in 2007, and changed the timeslot of Rollercoaster on the ABC1 from 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM to 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM this year. With neither timeslot change actually making any sense at all.
Hopefully the extra funding will mean the ABC can provide more quality kids programming. There are currently too many endless repeats of recent series, with many new series (ie Avatar – The Last Airbender, Fairly Odd Parents) still waiting for new seasons, while some terrible kids programming (reality TV series) has been shown lately.
The Arthur series is still actually been produced, and shown on the ABC. But the wait for each new season of Arthur is longer each time.
OMG yay!!!!! 😀
Best news of the year!! 😛
Well I hope it has a lot less inane animated programs lthan currently on ABC1 & ABC2. Can we look forward to a choice between cartoons, cartoons and cartoons on ABC1, 2, 3?
Wish they had this when I was a young’n.
But I hope this frees up ABC2 in the day so that it can have more interesting programming.
I must say when i was watching abc kids way before, they had the best kids shows. Just to name a few: arthur, little lulu, thunderstone, the genie from down under, her arnold, secret life of alex mac, daria, barbar, rugrats, madeline, little monsters… and loads more.
I really don’t understand why they stopped putting those shows and are now putting total crap… ‘in the night garden’- like seriously, get real!
Great news. Should bring more diversity to ABC1 and especially ABC2 by putting all the kids TV on the one channel (although ABC1 will still show kids TV for people with analogue). Well done ABC for being the first FTA to offer 3 different channels.
This is great news for the ABC. Hopefully there will be an even bigger increase in the budget for them so they can also run the new news and public affairs channel they want to do.
I also hope they won’t keep any kids shows on ABC2 – I can understand them being on ABC1 until analogue is switched off, but ABC2 is digital – so if you an get that then you can get ABC3.
What’s the point of this channel? Between 6am and 5:30pm, ABC already screen non stop childrens television between the two existing channels. Unless ABC plan to yank the kids programming off ABC2, it seems like this will just be a channel that simulcasts what is on ABC1/2 already for the main part.
Stephen “Think Of The Children” Conroy is at it again, I see.
Yes, yes, politically-correct idea and all (if you have kids, which I don’t and won’t) but why keep kids’ programming running on both ABC1 and ABC2? The latter makes zero sense, given that anyone who can receive ABC2 will be able to get ABC3.
At any rate, ABC3 won’t even rate a rescan of my PVR.
Still, hope parents everywhere enjoy Connroy’s latest Federal Babysitter and feel even less guilty dumping the kids in the family room with a TV and the internet while they live it large in the other room 🙂