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.
- Published by David Knox
- on
- Filed under News
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
Finally! But ABC3 should have been the 24/7 news channel instead of a kids channel, because kids programs pretty much dominate the schedueling on ABC1 and ABC2 during the day. No need for another kids channel.
And let’s hope the new news channel will not have a left-wing bias.
Word is at ABC HQ in Sydney the service will be called ‘ABC 4’
That Is Awsome!
Now I dont need Foxtel. Thank you ABC!
What a ridiculous waste of a HD channel. What was the point of shelling out thousands on a panel just to watch News in High Definition. It’s bad enough Ten uses its HD channel for sports, now this. No wonder Foxtel HD’s getting a bigger workout in this household than ever before.
At last a real choice for those of us who demand quality local news at all hours. With a few notable exceptions (Speers, Gilbert,
Waley) Sky News is regurgitated 7 and 9, presented by a b-grade line-up of readers with scant regard for grammar, quality writing or even the punctuation on the auto-cue.
If I was Sky News, I’d play to their strengths of political analysis
and local reports, because as a provider of rolling news coverage, with qualified journos and slick readers the ABC will trounce them.
Mark Scott said in the interview that they’ll be “delivering it on the HD spectrum” for the channel. Given there is no such thing as HD-specific bandwidth, presumably this means they will drop the HD channel altogether and use the freed-up bandwidth for the news channel in SD, as well as beefing up the bitrate of the other channels.
This would mean an improvement in picture quality on ABC1/ABC2/ABC3. In fact, dropping HD would allow the possibility of ABC5 as well.
Excellent News…can’t ABC1 become ABCHD and ABC1 become the News Channel, you won’t need to show news on the main ABC channel if you have a channel dedicated to news. Will this make Ch 7 and 9 bring Sky News to Freeview (they own it don’t they?).
Good news. I doubt the ABC will be able to fill 24 hours every day with their own content without numerous repeats , so I hope they’ll rebroadcast some material from TVNZ, BBC, CBC, PBS, etc
My guess would be that they would continue to simulcast ABC1 in HD and set up the news channel as an ABC4 – doesn’t seem any point putting news in HD. Over the long term ABC1 or 2 could go to full HD only, perhaps?
@ Richard W
Each channel has so much available bandwidth. Each stream (2, 20, 21, 22, 23, etc) uses up so much of that available bandwidth. They’re not fixed amounts, it depends on the quality of the image and sound, plus the number of languages made available in a stream.
For example, a 720p HD stream (ABC, SBS) uses less than a 1080i stream (Ten, Nine, Seven), but either uses more than a 576i SD stream. The sound can come in Mpeg2 or AC3, the former uses less bandwidth but the latter is clearer and full surround (sometime down the track we’ll get Mpeg4 sound that uses even less). Normally we get Mpeg 2 with SD and AC3 with HD, but it doesn’t have to be that way (NBN and Prime both like to mix it up on occasion).
Last time I checked, each station had around 24meg of bandwidth to play with. An HD stream used around 7-8meg of that and an SD station around 3. That allows for about one HD stream and 4 SD streams per station, currently. These figures vary, new broadcast equipment is released with better compression algorithms, stations may play with variable bitrates and other tricks. Plus my info is a bit old, but you get the general idea.
I’m pretty sure the original government submission called for the ability to multi-channel 1 HD and 9 SD streams per station, or something along those lines (I could be wrong there, I can’t find the documentation). Anyhow, numbers like that are theoretically possible with the DVB-T standard we chose, just not right now, not for a variety of reasons.
When does this channel commence.
This is the silliest idea I’ve ever heard. All these large screen TVs being sold and there is almost no HD content to watch on FTA. I read last year that the ABC was going to take HD seriously in 2010, and this is a funny way to go about it. A lot of news footage is still in 4:3 and there wouldn’t be too much in HD.
Once again Blu-ray to the rescue.
As one of the few who wont ever pay for tv because it’s just not that important in the great scheme of things I really like the idea of a 24 hour news channel. I don’t care it’s HD or SD, I just like it !
Are you sure about this information? The ABC had a 4th SD stream approved some time ago now, I’d imagine they’d use that for a new “channel” (a News one or otherwise), not their one and only available HD stream (though stranger things have happened). Given that they’re scratching for bandwidth as it is, it would be a very strange decision.
Also, for those wondering about image quality (particularly on ABC2), I have received a reply from the ABC. At the moment, at least two of their legacy streams (2 and 21) are being broadcast with a fixed bitrate. This causes them to use up more than their fair share of available bandwidth. The ABC have stated that sometime after March 2010, all ABC television streams will convert to a dynamic bitrate, which should fix up a lot of the pixellation issues we’re seeing now (fingers crossed).
If you ask me, they should can the two DVB-T radio stations to free up even more bandwidth. I certainly don’t know anybody who listens to them. You’d still be able to receive them via the Internet, or on a Digital Radio receiver (which makes more sense anyway).
I’m not sure if it is the best idea to have their news channel on HD since a lot of overseas footage, satellite crosses or footage taken from other networks might probably be in SD or worse. The only thing that would be in HD would be the news studio or press conferences, footage filmed by ABC cameras and who wants to see our politicians in HD anyway.
But it’s still great to have a government funded news network to go against Sky News.
I really hope they have lots of American focused news of the more intelligent variety. What happens there influences us so much. I don’t want to just see endless boring Australian news.
People on the internet, when they have a choice, 99% of the time head to US based sites. This is the only Australian site I go to from the hundreds I visit. Australia is a bit boring really and people can only take so much.
I already have a news channel….Sky News, so I guess it’s bad for me since I would rather have a channel dedicated to television shows but I guess ABC already gave me ABC2…
ABC don’t even release their own HD shows on Blu-Ray (the only one that has been released is The Librarians)…so we’ll lose HD entirely for these shows!
Can someone please explain to me the deal with “freeing up bandwidth”? Is that an issue with too many ABC channels? Or and issue for the whole Digital network that it can only have so many HD channels?
If so, what the point in digital if its not very expandable and also whats the point in my TV having a possible of 999 channels??
Hope this means that viewers outside NSW/Vic will get to see the breakfast without a delay (as is the case now on ABC2). Hopefully the channel will be like TVNZ7 (an ad free state funded news channel on freeview in NZ) that will also show quality docos as well as news.
Rupert won’t like this one bit…but this is great news for competition.
Fox News and Sky are rubbish and it’s time we had a news channel that really is ‘fair and balanced’- to coin a Fox News phrase.
4 SD channels is the way to go with the space they have. If one is going to be HD, not the news channel!
As a major fan of the breakfast show – this is just absolutely fantastic news. I agree that it’s wasted on a HD channel, but that doesn’t take away from my excitement 🙂
I think this is a great idea – the right channel run by the broadcaster with the right journalistic resources to make it work.
Finally a channel that doesn’t just appeal to the lowest common denominator.
I just hope they will use their common sense and broadcast it live across the country.
Yay my HD TV is getting even less useful!