ABC's new 24-hour News channel commences next week?

stephenb (Stephen) · #1 09-07-2010, 08:25 AM

The ABC's much talked about news channel has started running its promo back-to-back on the ol' ABC HD channel.

I only get to see Sky News on Foxtel at my place of work, as I do not have Pay TV at home, so I'm glad there will be a service such as this on free-to-air TV.

If we cast our minds back prior to Sept 11 2001, News Bars - that scrolling text along the bottom of news services - didn't exist in Australia. It was mainly due to our exposure to so much US news services surrounding 9/11 and the increase in Pay TV in this country that local newtorks took on this feature on every news service in Oz. (At Channel 9, we used to call them "pull-throughs" when referring to the horizontal scrolling advertisements or information during live cricket).

So, now in Australia 2010 we will have a digital 24-hour news channel. How our media has evolved.

There have been some negative publicity about the technical issues at "Media Hub" facility in Sydney (co-operated by WIN-TV) and based in Ingleburn, in Sydney's South-west suburbs.

As someone commented online this week "...we have all been watching too much drivel on other channels. I watched, “A Current Affair” the other week (for once) and they had three segments. One was about the worst neighbours, the next was about womans bra sizes and the last was something to do with politics..."

My thoughts exactly.

No doubt the commercial networks will have such channel in the future, but for now I hope that we can trust such a new initiative in this country to Aunty, and allow her to treat it with respect.

Sarge (Rod) · #2 10-07-2010, 01:04 AM

Stephen
I refuse to "pay" to watch TV. Its bad enough watching it for free. I agree with you - current affairs programs are really crap. I am looking forward to ABC 24, promos sound great. But I wish Aunty would put "Time Team" back on, it is one of the best shows coming out of England.

Rod

Steffen · #3 10-07-2010, 02:17 AM

So, no more ABC HD. That sucks. I need no stinking TV news channel, that's what the net is for

Cheers
Steffen.

sheeny (Al) · #4 10-07-2010, 02:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sarge

Stephen
I refuse to "pay" to watch TV. Its bad enough watching it for free. I agree with you - current affairs programs are really crap. I am looking forward to ABC 24, promos sound great. But I wish Aunty would put "Time Team" back on, it is one of the best shows coming out of England.

Rod

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steffen

So, no more ABC HD. That sucks. I need no stinking TV news channel, that's what the net is for

Cheers
Steffen.

I agree with both of you.

The ABC ran some great shows in HD TV...

There's more than enough news shows on IMHO.

Al.

stephenb (Stephen) · #5 10-07-2010, 07:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sarge

Stephen
I refuse to "pay" to watch TV. Its bad enough watching it for free. I agree with you - current affairs programs are really crap. I am looking forward to ABC 24, promos sound great. But I wish Aunty would put "Time Team" back on, it is one of the best shows coming out of England.

Rod

Rod, in regards to Time Team, ABC started showing the new 2010 series last month, but stopped after only 5 episodes. The feedback I have received from ABC Programming is that the ABC only had permission to broadcast these episodes as the rest of the series has not been aired in the UK to date. But the very strong rumour circulating on discussion boards is that the ABC have had their broadcasting rights for the rest of this new season temporarily withdrawn because they aired these first 5 episodes out of sequence. And by the way, they were fantastic episodes too

Al, I agree that there is some news programming on free-to-air, but I cannot agree that there is any news bulletin on free-to-air at this time which I can walk away after viewing and confidently say I have been better informed on genuine national and world events.

On the commercial networks alone we have the "morning shows" (Sunrise, Today), Mid-morning news bulletins and news crosses between Kerri-Ann,. 9 has an 11am bulletin. Most of thses news stories are pulled from US feeds and are simply not news! I watched on mid-morning news service last week which included stories on Danni Minogue, then Lindsay Lohan going to jail??? How is this news, please? And the three networks have their nighly news. Well, in my opinion all these services are sub-standard,tabloid puff with no substance.

I guess it depends what you want from your information. I have been relatively pleased with Sky News, I used to enjoy CNN back when I had no other new source available. I believe this is a step forward for broadcasting, but time will tell.

Fossil (Jonathan) · #6 10-07-2010, 09:06 PM

What erks me with the 'news' and free-to-air TV generally is the amount of sport they put on.
Quite often the top news story is a sport item, followed by a bit of news, then more sport items, then the finance news comes on which often has sport items in it, followed by the sport - which is all sport and nothing but sport, then the weather comes on and it's presented at some sport venue or other.
Then one of the current affairs programs comes on and repeats half of the sport stories...
Grrrrr... enough already.

Anybody else notice the insane preoccupation with sport on some of the commercial channels ???

koputai (Jason) · #7 10-07-2010, 11:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by glenluceskies

At Channel 9, we used to call them "pull-throughs"

Currently called 'Text Crawls' or 'Tickers'.

Quote:

There have been some negative publicity about the technical issues at "Media Hub" facility in Sydney (co-operated by WIN-TV) and based in Ingleburn, in Sydney's South-west suburbs.

The major incident, which happened during 'Media Watch' (very unfortunate!) was actually caused by MCR in Ultimo, and had nothing to do with MediaHub at all.

It's a massive project and is currently still being built, yet they're already using sections of it on-air.

Cheers,
Jason.

MrB (Simon) · #8 11-07-2010, 01:07 AM

I'll echo Steffen and Al's concern, no more HD on ABC?
They are going backwards.
Quantity over quality...
Shame.

acropolite (Phil) · #9 11-07-2010, 10:34 AM

While I think the idea of a 24 hour news channel is good, the amount of expenditure and effort the ABC is putting in to it is IMO misguided.

What we need is more good quality HD content, not more of the same mostly senationalistic news that abounds on every other channel and the radio.

koputai (Jason) · #10 11-07-2010, 10:53 AM

They want to hurry this new channel to air so are using space that the underused HD
market is currently utilsing.

The News 24 channel will attract a lot more viewers than the same old Miss Marple and
bonnet drama twaddle upconverted to HD.

Cheers,
Jason.

TheDecepticon · #11 11-07-2010, 10:53 AM

Yes, another news channel, indeed. More rubbish, propaganda and truth bending. Do we really need to know?

koputai (Jason) · #12 11-07-2010, 11:00 AM

You've got to admit though, if the ABC can take news viewers away from Seven, Nine, and TEN, then that has to be a good thing for raising the average IQ of the country, which by my estimation is hovering somewhere around the ****-all mark.

Cheers,
Jason.

Pinwheel (Doug) · #13 11-07-2010, 08:58 PM

I run a multiple satellite dish network covering many free to air news channels & I see news reports in english the Australian channels would never air. The truth is out there you only need to look.

stephenb (Stephen) · #14 11-07-2010, 09:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by koputai

Currently called 'Text Crawls'.

The major incident, which happened during 'Media Watch' (very unfortunate!) was actually caused by MCR in Ultimo, and had nothing to do with MediaHub at all.

It's a massive project and is currently still being built, yet they're already using sections of it on-air.

Cheers,
Jason.

Sorry, Jase, I thought Media Watch did highlight issue with freezing of feeds to Adelaide and Brissy also? I may have misunderstood that. That was on the previous episode to the actual Media Watch bungle.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheDecepticon

Yes, another news channel, indeed. More rubbish, propaganda and truth bending. Do we really need to know?

Not quite sure what you mean by this?? But yes I personally do like to be informed on national and international events, not be bombarded with tabloid news bulletins filled with sport, sport, sport, "b-grade-celeb has baby", sport, "cross-promo for program on same network", oh a natural disaster somewhere (who cares), sport.. etc...

So yes, I really need to know, and like to know what is going on in the world.

Quote:

You've got to admit though, if the ABC can take news viewers away from Seven, Nine, and TEN, then that has to be a good thing for raising the average IQ of the country, which by my estimation is hovering somewhere around the ****-all mark.

Fully agree mate.

Steffen · #15 12-07-2010, 01:51 AM

I have nothing against news (even though I prefer to get mine from the net, including ABC's site), but wouldn't an SD channel have sufficed for 24x7 news? Why did it have to be at the expense of ABC HD?

Cheers
Steffen.

Starkler (Geoff) · #16 12-07-2010, 04:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheDecepticon

Yes, another news channel, indeed. More rubbish, propaganda and truth bending. Do we really need to know?

Hangon this is Auntie, not Murdochs NewsCorp or the Faux news network.

Bring it on!

Jen · #17 12-07-2010, 04:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steffen

So, no more ABC HD. That sucks. I need no stinking TV news channel, that's what the net is for

Cheers
Steffen.

yeah no news is good news