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Digital first for Four Corners

In a sign of things to come, "Shadow State" premiered on iview a day before its linear broadcast on ABC.

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In June ABC announced plans to transition to becoming a “digital-first media organisation.”

The 5 year plan to meet the changing habits of audiences also triggered staff redundancies as well as the creation of 24 new roles in digital skills.

This week Four Corners quietly made its own first with an episode premiering on iview a day before its linear broadcast.

“Shadow State,” an investigation by Angus Grigg and Jessica Longbottom into government consultancies and firms like PwC, Deloitte and Accenture, was a priority story for ABC, which was originally due to screen on Monday July 31.

Rather than go up against a Matildas match, ABC held it back for a week. As fate would have it the Matildas one and played again on Monday August 7.

As a result ABC decided to premiere the episode first on iview to give the story more attention, a full day before its linear broadcast.

Other ABC programmes, such as News Breakfast, are also looking to start dropping segments and content on digital ahead of linear, which could impact ratings, but could also generate some word of mouth.

Watch this space.

2 Responses

  1. That was a bust – didn’t get anywhere near the attention it should have received.

    news.com.au ran it well down the page – alongside articles about why a group of people think a certain way, based on a couple of comments from a web page.

  2. Digital-first is handy when daylight saving inevitably imposes itself outside of Queensland, some shows and broadcasts can be viewed live instead of an hour later, especially if a developing news event is happening.

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