ABC News Australia Online

Early History

The Australian News service in Jan 2010 revealed its plans to launch a 24-hour media. Its logo was uncovered by Freeview in a new promotion on June 22, 2010. The official promotion campaign started on digital channel 24 in July 2010. Speculations about the potential launch date of the channel started to surface on different electronic and public news mediums.

The Daily Telegraph reported that the launch of the channel could be postponed due to technical issues being experienced by the channel in MediaHub which was a new playout facility located in south west Sydney. However, the others were breaking the launch to be in the mid of July. The network on July 13, 2010 announced that it would air its first live broadcast on July 22, 2010.

Another announcement regarding the rebranding of ABC NewsRadio and ABC News 24 came in Nov 2016. The channel was relaunched on April 10, 2017.

Reception and Response

The broadcasts of the channel received a mixed response from audiences and general public. The unwillingness to make use of the additional funding from government contributed to the rising pressure on the budget and operations, ABC3 (now ABC ME) could be a recent example that concerned the critics.

Answering in the Senate Estimates Hearings in Feb 2012, the network admitted a $2.5 deficit in the news and current affairs division budget. Newsroom budgets received a 1.5% cut in their spending. Though, the ABC denied the link to the station and instead made its point on the coverage of Christchurch Earthquakes and floods that hit Victoria and Queensland. Senator Nick Xenophon, an independent voice indicted broadcaster to be suffering cutbacks worth $20m sports coverage of the SANFL.

ABC however, has attended relatively high viewership as compared to Sky News Australia with a reach surpassing two million viewers per week, 3 times higher than that of Sky News. The highest primetime audience share recorded by the station was 9.5% during the coverage of 2016 Federal Election on July 2, 2016.

Programming

The broadcaster’s content includes rolling-hour news bulletins and their repeated versions, live coverage of question sessions and press conferences from the Parliament houses, cultural and arts programming, educational stuff and documentaries. The content shared by the broadcaster includes both ABC-produced programming and that of its partners which include Al Jazeera English, BBC, TVNZ, PBS, SABC and NHK.

Joe O’Brien, Gemma Veness, Karina Carvalho, Ros Childs, Kirsten Ailken, Briana Shepherd, Miriam Corowa and Jason Om are the newscasters. Specialist and featured content includes a daily business show: The Business, a topical debate program The Drum run by Ellen Fanning, Julia Baird, Eleanor Hall and John Barron and an international bulletin with Beverley O’Connor produced from Melbourne Studio.

News Breakfast and ABC News at Noon are the notable programs carried by ABC News Channel and ABC TV at the same time in AEST/AEDT time zones while the viewers in ACST and AWST time zones can opt to either watch them live on ABC News Channel or in their local times as delayed versions carried by ABC TV. The Business is also hosted on an earlier timeslot than that of ABC TV. Capital Hill was added as a new program in the timeslot of ABC after its announcement on Sep 30, 2010. Chris Uhlmann hosted a political show that included commentary and analysis on political events and significant news of the week. Now the show is hosted by Greg Jennet, airs every weekday and also features interviews of political interviews.

The overnight programming draws upon the satellite programming of BBC World News which includes news bulletins of the British broadcaster and shows like Impact with Yalda Hakim, Global with Matthew Amroliwala, Outside Source with Ros Atkins. Two Al Jazeera English Newshours are also part of the programming. The overnight programming consists of the rebroadcasts of daytime programs including The World, The Drum and other weekday’s shows.

48, Q&A, 7.30, Offsiders, Australian Story, Foreign Correspondent, Landline, Big Ideas, Four Corners and Insiders are repeats originally produced at ABC TV.

ABC News Channel is available online on the official site of the station and can also be watched internationally on YouTube. However, iView Stream is only available for audiences in Australia.

The International bureaus of the ABC News are located in London, Dubai, Paris, Hong Kong, Mexico City, Shanghai, Moscow, New York City, Singapore, Jakarta, Tokyo, Mumbai and Istanbul.

Presenters

Correspondents (Overseas)