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ABC News reverting to 30 minute Sunday bulletins

After 8 years of 40 minute bulletin on Sundays, ABC will trim by 10 minutes and align with their other editions.

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EXCLUSIVE:

After 8 years as a 40 minute edition ABC News Sunday bulletins are reverting to 30 minutes.

An ABC spokesperson told TV Tonight, “The Sunday night edition of the 7pm News will be 30 minutes from 23 October, aligning with the duration of the other six nightly news editions.”

ABC moved to 40 minute editions in 2014, initially allocating 10 minutes of state-based content, following the end of state based 7:30 editions on Fridays.

The move under News boss Justin Stevens will also see entertainment shows revert to a 7:30 start, kicking off with the documentary Inside the Sydney Opera House.

It isn’t clear why ABC is making the move, whether driven by ratings, or costs within the news department.

Last Sunday ABC News drew 528,000 metro viewers while Spicks and Specks was 448,000, both ahead of 10 numbers.

13 Responses

  1. The timing to do it now would be right. Viewers are probably exhausted following the recent coverage of the Queen’s death and funeral that they may have switched off temporarily or may not even notice. If you want more news, there’s the ABC news channel.

  2. I remember way back when I was a wee li’l childe (and I am 58 now) that the ABC Sunday bulletin was only 15 minutes long, and the other half of the 7:00-7:30 timeslot was taken up by a magazine show called, appropriately, Weekend Magazine. I also remember, when Bellbird was running, the five minutes before the weekdaily Sydney news was taken up by local news (in my case, Canberra news.)

    1. … actually, the ABC Sunday bulletin was only six-and-a-half minutes long, Weekend Magazine was twenty minutes and then the weather was three-and-a-half making up the half-hour … and yes the days of the five-minute regional news between Bellbird and the 7pm news while metro audiences enjoyed such scintillating fare (in Adelaide) as “To Market To Market” and “Hook Line and Sinker” which were the first programs I ever directed for the ABC back in 1970 (along with the nightly weather which in those days was beneath the news department to direct so a presentation director had to slip into the chair for four minutes at the end of the news and then slip out again so that the TDT director could jump in … sorta ABC musical chairs!!!)

  3. ABC used to play their 730 Sunday programme at 740 for decades, because it enabled their next show to start at 830, the same time as all the commercial movies.

    Now that commercial stations make up their own times after 7pm, and times for shows like 60 Minutes have become “follow the bouncing ball”, that is no longer relevant.

    1. … for “decades” on Sundays the ABC ran the next program at 8.20pm rather than 8.30, the next news at 9.15pm and the final news at 10.10pm … that meant a long gap for the crew between the end of the weather at 7.30 and the next news at 9.15 so we used to disappear, often arriving back at the studio only just in time to put the 9.15 bulletin to air, much to the consternation of the news department!!

  4. Great idea hope Seven and Nine revert back to 30 minutes too, who really needs to know about a low flying plane landing on a Greek Island or worse still Jenny putting a full page add in a local paper about Steve cheating on her Seven had on their news bulletins recently to fill a 60 minute slot. My solution tape everything fast forward through the painful bits and more importantly the add breaks which are often repeats throughout.

      1. I’m not a fan of 6pm news on 10, but it is too much. They did it in 2011, and they are still doing the 6pm news from late 2019-onwards. Personally this is a recycled some news bulletins. Ten simply had a lot of problems in its 6pm timeslot in early 2010s. They tried the 6pm with George Negus and their ratings are bad. Hence it had to be moved to 6:30 until it’s axing in late Oct 2011. Also in 2011, they even had a 90 min Saturday and Sunday nationwide bulletin from Sydney studios. To have a 90 minute news is an overkill.

  5. The current 40 minute bulletin has 15 minutes of news and 25 minutes of stuff filmed during the week.
    I hope the ABC will remove 10 minutes from the “stuff” and not the “news” part.
    We fast forward thru most of Sunday night ABC news as it’s not news.

  6. I wish they’d bring back Weekend Magazine. Used to love that show every week after the Sunday news bulletin. Lots of interesting stories, short and to the point.

  7. The ABC should stick to 30-min bulletins every night. 40 Mins is quite long. It would be best that ABC sticks to 7:30pm start of general shows.
    Back in 2011, Ten had the 90 min news bulletins and a 90 minute news bulletin is too long. There is just repeat of news that have happened during the first hour.

  8. A good decision irrespective of the reasoning behind it. The bulletins always struggle to fill forty minutes with proper news stories so 30 minutes will make for a tighter and more informed presentation.

    Now is only the commercial networks would reduce their bulletins back to 30 minutes as well given they have so much filler it nearly defies description.

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