Did ABC News 24 really drop the ball?

Some media reports have criticised ABC News 24 for failing to adequately cover the disaster in Japan on the weekend, noting that the channel was running regular programming on Saturday as a potential nuclear disaster was looming.

Such criticisms raise questions about how well staffed the channel was over the weekend as an international crisis was, and continues, to unfold.

As this site reported on Saturday, ABC News 24 pulled the biggest multichannel share on Friday night principally because it switched to live coverage of the tsunami on NHK World as the waves were crashing through Japanese farmlands. In contrast commercial bulletins ran limited footage in their 6pm bulletins, mostly on the quake and not the tsunami which was happening at around 6pm AEDT.

That’s hardly dropping the ball. It completely upstaged them.

On Saturday ABC News 24 did have some regular programming which was inadequate given the interest in the crisis.

An ABC spokesperson told TV Tonight the ABC had correspondents on the ground when the earthquake and tsunami struck, and provided immediate coverage.

“On Friday when the story broke, ABC News 24 switched immediately to a mixture of its own ABC reporting and rolling coverage from Japanese broadcasters, and provided extensive and continuous coverage,” they said. “As a result of this coverage, viewers switched to ABC NEWS 24 in record numbers. ABC News 24 was the top rating digital channel on the day with 4.2% share and the top show at 162,000 viewers.

“Over the weekend, coverage of the disaster continued, but it was not uninterrupted rolling coverage at all times. Using the resources available to it, ABC News 24 provided significant coverage of key developments in the story. Where possible, ABC News 24 interrupted its normal scheduled programs to provide additional news coverage of the disaster.”

Extra staff were also brought in on the weekend, but it isn’t clear whether it was actually enough to match the coverage that is provided on weekdays.

In hindsight ABC News 24 should have offered more from NHK World on the weekend. ABC1 is a better place to provide updates in between regular programming.

But its role on Friday night must also be recognised and the numbers indicate a significant number of the audience turned to the channel because commercial FTA networks were still coming to terms with the footage.