media
22 Jan 2010
Is 24-Hour News Good News?
Mark Scott's announcement of a 24-hour rolling news channel might thrill political junkies but will it rehabilitate current affairs at the ABC?
There wasn’t a lot of detail in Mark Scott’s announcement yesterday that the ABC will be offering a 24-hour news channel. That hasn’t prevented a great deal of commentary appearing on the matter — opinions were even on offer in advance of the formal announcement.
The launch of Australia’s first free-to-air 24-hour television news channel will be one of the bigger media stories of the early part of the year. It’s one more bold step from Scott as managing director: it follows moves to renovate the ABC’s online presence, as well as new efforts to harness user-generated content like ABC Open.
Many commentators have rushed forward to say that a rolling news service "makes sense" for the ABC, both as a way of repurposing ABC content, and as a move in the chess game it’s playing with Sky over stewardship of the Australia Network. But, as news consumers and taxpayers, we’re entitled to pause for a moment and wonder whether it actually makes sense for us.
The new channel will provide a free-to-air competitor to Australia’s only current rolling news service, Sky News. There have been some catty comments about Sky’s stake in all this and as usual, the Murdochs make irresistible stage villains. But Sky actually has a lot to be proud of in leading the field and in building a 24-hour news service with diverse offerings where none previously existed. Particularly creditable innovations include the aggregation of hyperlocal, capital city news broadcasts in Sky Local, and A-PAC, which runs continuous coverage of Parliament and various public sphere events that fall outside the normal run of television news.
Admittedly and unsurprisingly, though, Sky and other Murdoch outlets have offered takes on the ABC’s move that have been more than a little cranky, including yesterday’s rant from Sky’s CEO, Angelos Frangopoulos. The ABC’s announcement constitutes a new skirmish in the running feud between Scott and News Corporation — and no doubt adds to the latter organisation’s gripes with public broadcasters.
Scott has given as good as he’s got over the last year, painting Murdoch as yesterday’s man in a speech last year, and attempting to underline his own credentials as a thought leader by expanding user-facing online initiatives despite News Corp’s dark mutterings on paywalls, and its Google- and blogger-bashing.
However self-interested Frangopoulos’s criticisms may be, though, they do contain a grain of truth. When he argues that the ABC is violating its charter by offering a competing service to a commercial player, he’s being a bit too cute. Sky isn’t free to air, so when we take access into account, Sky’s offerings and those of the new ABC channel will hardly be homogenous. When the ABC’s service goes to air, by contrast, those who don’t have pay television will have access to a local, continuous television news service for the first time.
But a more important, related question is this: Who will want or need such a service in a news and information landscape which is more and more characterised by an abundance of basic, headline-style coverage? This question is all the more pressing at a time when the Australian Government is moving to guarantee access to the bandwidth needed to access on-demand multimedia coverage online. In a fibre-to-the-home era, live news coverage — even video news — will no longer be the preserve of television channels.
We’re also entitled to ask questions about the size of the anticipated audience for this service — and about who will actually use it. The ABC’s initiatives should certainly not be constrained by the pursuit of ratings, but in a post-broadcast democracy like Australia, it’s likely that the audience will be small, and primarily composed of those who are already information-rich. There’s every indication that other similar initiatives, like BBC 24 in the UK, have struggled to transcend that audience — which is also the group that Sky relies on for its daytime ratings here. A 24-hour ABC news network will likely be part of the smorgasbord of specialised material available to news junkies like me whose appetite for political content is effectively bottomless. It will, in other words, be largely serving a niche market which is already well catered for. Is this the best way to use the ABC’s finite resources?
Frangopoulos is also right to point to the contradiction between the announcement and the clarifications surrounding it. We’re told that there will be new staff hired and a new Ultimo facility and at the same time an attempt to blunt criticism is made with reassurances that the channel won’t need special content or any resources that aren’t in place. It’s hard to see how this is an initiative that won’t involve additional costs. Even if it were, to wholeheartedly endorse it we’d need to grant that the ABC’s current news and current affairs offerings are satisfactory. Unfortunately, they’re mostly not.
The ABC’s flagship programs are becoming limper and limper: the 7:30 Report’s political interviews are often little more than an empty ritual; 4 Corners takes a quarter of the year off and runs more and more overseas content. Local radio is generally understaffed, and, as a result of online initiatives, it carries the burden of increased responsibilities and thus struggles to break stories. With attention, if not money, flowing to a new service, will these issues be addressed?
Indeed, if the ABC really wanted to honour its charter and address market failures, it would seek not to provide the kind of shallow continuous coverage that, intermittent, "event" stories aside, characterises 24-hour news services and freely available online alternatives.
Instead, they’d be going for that more elusive quality in the contemporary information landscape: depth. By renewing the investigative remit of 4 Corners in order that it might pursue a greater number of important, complex national stories, the ABC would be providing something that simply doesn’t exist elsewhere and which Australian democracy urgently needs.
And if Kerry O’Brien had the support of an investigative team, he might be able to confront politicians with new information and curly questions, instead of leading all comers through the same, tired pas de deux. If additional resources were provided to local radio, collapsing local public spheres might be revivified. A continuous news service will not address these entrenched difficulties which are problems for Australia’s democracy as much as they are for the ABC.
True thought leadership from Mr Scott might recognise that what’s lacking in Australia’s public sphere is not another source of basic news coverage, but a commitment to providing new information, context, synthesis, analysis, and tough questions. More information on the new channel will reveal the extent of his awareness of these problems.
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The ABC would have set up a 24 hour news service back in the late 1990s but for the commercial free-to-air networks holding back multichannelling.
Its an excellent proposal that indicates that the ABC is getting real about being a 21st century news brand, where people want services when they want them, and not when they are scheduled.
Why shouldn’t people who want news on Saturday or Sunday morning have to wait until Rage finishes or the cartoons are over? And while I have no problems with SKY news, the ABC is a trusted source that will also be available on free-to-air networks.
There ae two fallacies in the article. One is that having a 24 hour news service somehow subtracts from everything else. There is no principle reason why a 24 hour news service exists in opposition to The 7.30 Report, 4 Corners, Insiders etc.
The second is the self-flagellating assumption that it is somehow bad for the ABC to cater to the information-rich and news junkies. Who are the current audience for 7.30 Report, Lateline, Insiders etc. if its not precisely these people? The ABC has always been a network for this constituency, and it is allowed to be so.
Thanks El Tel. Still not sure I’m totally convinced, though.
I’m not sure an historical failure to set up a news channel constitutes an argument for having one now. If anything, it contributes to my sense that this is not a forward-looking initiative. It may have made sense in the late 1990s, but the news media environment has been completely transformed.
Assuming we’d like the ABC to be a “21st Century News Brand”, what would that entail? Does it require them to devote a television channel to continuous news coverage, when FTTH broadband infrastructure will enable people to access rich content from the ABC (or anyone else) on demand without switching on their telly at all? Even now, people with a half-decent ADSL service don’t have to wait until Rage is over before viewing a wide array of ABC content of their choice. When we’re all broadbanded up, people will be able to access a half-hourly news Bulletin at trivial cost, and with a flexibility that will in turn make the typical half-hourly cycles of continuous broadcasting seem clumsy.
I’m aware of the problem with zero-sum arguments in this area, but ABC resources are finite. The ABC itself has asked for specific additional funding for this in the past. They’re not now, but I think it’s fair to assume that whatever resourcing is committed to this won’t be deployed elsewhere. If we agree that current offerings are not up to scratch, it’s also fair to ask about organisational priorities.
The point about news junkies is not so much about self-flaggelation, I hope. I’m more curious about where the perception that this channel is necessary is coming from. Who wants it? The people who already have Sky subscriptions? The people who are following all the ABC accounts on Twitter? The people tuned into News Radio all day? The people who pore over current iView offerings? The people who could absorb the contents of your typical rolling news Bulletin in five minutes on Google reader? Speaking as a news junkie, in terms of basic, headline news, I think I’m covered. What else are they providing? We haven’t been told.
If we accept that this is an argument about organisational priorities, in addition to renovating current offerings, I’d urge them to run harder with the online ball. Go hard on the ABC Local websites, pursue ABC Open, streamline online analysis offerings, and own that space. I’m not opposed to them exploring new avenues, I just don’t think this makes sense.
In any case, I did say that I’d be curious to hear more detail about the channel. I could be wrong; I often am.
i’d note that 70 per cent of Australian households don’t have cable, and about 40 per cent of Australians don’t use Web browsers. A significant proportion of this population would welcome a 24 hour news service. And given that this is primarily a lower-income constituency, it is a positive measure for social equity.
Should I have been watching Sky News, so I am aware of the apparent bench-mark for this debate?
SKY News is OK, but the ABC’s strength is that it has field journalists around the nation, as well as a network of international correspondents.
Anything that give us an alternative to the Murdoch-verse has to be a good thing, surely.
Sorry - switched off for the evening.
@ El Tel at 5:44 - It’s a good point, though we seem to be getting away from the idea that it’s okay for the ABC to cater for news junkies.
There’s room for argument about how significant the audience will be - no doubt the ABC will have its own view. But there’s every reason to think the audience will not be huge.
Which proxy to use for a guess? News Radio rates between 1.5 and 2.5, depending on which capital city you’re talking about, though Nielsen doesn’t offer us any clues about reach.
http://au.nielsen.com/site/documents/Metro809.pdf
BBC News 24 consistently gets around a 1% share according to BARB, though their weekly reach hovers just under 20%
http://www.barb.co.uk/report/weeklyViewingSummary?_s=4
Of course, it’s not easy to translate straight over from that context. The BBC are a much larger presence in their home market than the ABC are here, and the UK’s experience with pay television, digital rollout, and multichannel FTA broadcasting have all been different.
Another comparison may be the number of subscription TV homes who tune in to Sky News. The most recent OzTam figures are here. (PDF)
http://www.oztam.com.au/documents/2010/B2_20100103.pdf
Sky had a good report - they managed a 1.3% share. Their weekly reach topped a million. That, of course, means a cumulative total of 1.2 million people watched at least one minute of Sky News during the week.
There’s a discussion to be had about share vs reach, of course, and the story about reach could be seen as going your way. But here’s how I’d put it: at any given time, between 1 and 2 % of people in a range of examples seem prepared to engage with a rolling news service. Given the undeniable costs (and opportunity costs) associated with this, and given current and emerging alternatives for basic, headline news services, should this be an institutional priority for the ABC?
The above is not an argument that the ABC’s decisions should be solely determined by actual or likely ratings, of course, it’s more questioning the idea that there is an enormous popular appetite for rolling news services, which have real costs and opportunity costs attached to them. involve real costs and opportunity costs.
PS - Disclosure: I will likely be a faithful viewer of any such service, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think that there are other more pressing priorities at the ABC.
The more I think about this, the greater the complexity.
For instance, is the divide deepening between the web-savvy and consumers of wide-screen bikinis? Notice how latest figures suggest surfers are spending more time on social networks, than on googling. Notice how Nokia dropped in free location service, at the imminent threat of the iPad. More sophistication in hand-held, go-anywhere, personal assistants must translate into more independence from main-stream output.
For instance, both US and UK have just opened portals into massive databanks. Will it be left to non-profits and independents to capture the viewing market for exposure of information in the public interest?
Does ABC need to attract audience away from those idiotic “tonight” shows with colossal revenue from advertising?
It seems inescapable that ABC should be moving into commerce, unless it wants to remain restricted to the promulgation of ideas. The elite end of the electorate will always be tiny and fickle, and easily estranged by the wasting of resources on pap. So, how would the ABC position itself to be the source for good analysis of the world of corporations? Again, with that US Supreme Court decision on political donations, there will be greater agitation for accountable methods of commentary.
“In a fibre-to-the-home era, live news coverage — even video news — will no longer be the preserve of television channels.”
I take issue with the assumption that video on demand renders a 24 hours news channel ineffective. Whilst video on demand may well be the future for some types of television programming, news content, by its very nature, does not suit this model. You have to remember that news broadcasts on channels such as Al Jazeera, BBC World News and SKY are live to provide the greatest level of immediacy to news coverage. Therefore, video on demand defeats this core function. 24 hour news channels will still continue to provide the depth and concision of content not offered through news websites.
From
http://www.juancole.com/2010/01/milne-haitis-poverty-is-treated-as-some….
One of the many ways in which Aljazeera is superior to American news programs is that it has a frequent 5-minute History spot, in which reporters review some key historical turning point. In all the wall-to-wall coverage of Haiti’s earthquake that I have seen on US news channels, I cannot remember Toussaint L’Ouverture being mentioned even once. I cannot remember any extended consideration of the decades when the US Marines ruled the country or why FDR stopped that. I can’t remember a report on recent US history with Aristide.
It is as though a top executive actively ordered the reporters to avoid any context, any background, any history. The so-called “History Channel” has nothing about Haiti. The shows are “Sniper,” “Extreme Marksmen,” “Seven Signs of the Apocalypse,” and the “Nostradamus Effect.”
Would a national 24-hour news channel be more like The Today Show on scroll, or more like Aljazeera? I’d like to hear Mark Scott stake his job on his guarantee that ABC4 will never dump a short interlude of background history, like the role of the USA in Haiti’s failures, for a lost kitten.
ABC News!?
A continuing comedy of errors, generally.
Dates wrong, numbers wrong, places and people wrong. You can listen and watch ABV TV and Radio and add them up. So much so that you have to wonder whether someone is syphoning off the budget into something else, because certainly the ‘journalists’ and ‘editors’ of the ABC seem to have been shown the door. The ABC used be a measure of certitude, one that you could trust. No longer! All that one can guarantee these days is that they will stuff up almost every story they cover with gross errors, or else ‘shade’ it with so much bias towards the Establishment that credibility goes completely down the drain.
I reckon the ABC needs a new News Channel like a hole in the head. What it needs is a totally new Management and Board, throw all those Howard cronies in the dust, and it be set to comply with it’s Charter.
Scott seems to be treating the ABC as his personal fiefdom, one with which to play his own Right-Wing games, toeing the fixed and rigid Establishment line of Consumerism, Economic Rationalism, Ultra Conservative Politics, and keeping the Australian Populace as much in the dark about reality in the World as much as possible.
And Krudd and Co. seem to be quite happy to see it continue on that line.
Once the ABC was a Pioneer, reaching into new ideas, even attempting to set new social agendas…now it is a totally hide-bound, regimented, fallacious occupant of band-space that could be used much better.
I read AlJazeera on line, and would love to watch AlJazeera TV, if it were not, as it is in America, totally banned by our Government, who fear people learning ideas other than what Krudd and his conservative minders consider is good for them.
Much like Krudd’s and Conroy’s coming Censorship of the Web.
This has nothing to do with keeping porn away from our minors (it fails this anyway) but has everything to do with making sure that he and his thugs control what we read, hear and see. He learned a lot of things from the Chinese, in his time over there.
A stunted and controlled ABC and other Media is MUCH to his liking.
With a collapsed and unelectable Opposition, and a continuing PR campaign against the Greens and all other progressive forces that is dirty in the extreme. Krudd sees himself as being Leader/Fuhrer for a very long time, and his Far Right Conservative Religious agenda will become more obvious after the next election. An election assisted by his ‘mates’ in the ABC. Not as Howard and his thugs saw the ABC , as loaded with Left bias, but as it truly is, a hot-bed of Conservative thinking and acting (even if it is so full of errors), made that way by Howard and continued by Krudd.
Poor Fellow, My Country!
The ABC is just another conservative mainstream media organisation - albeit better than most. What will a news channel offer? Nothing of much value - a longish loop of soundbites, pr releases and the odd talking head show where a bunch of conservatives chat about how important it is they retain power.
In many ways the ABC is profoundly disruptive and regressive in the same way the Labor party is - by holding itself up as a progressive alternative it masks and prevents the development of any real alternative (of scale). In that sense, as dazza points out, it is perfect for Rudd et al.
well i think all you socalled intelligent news junkies have missed the point , there is no news at all on free to air TV at a large percentage of the day, so if mum is feeding her baby ,or grandpa is having a rest after a hour or two in the garden , and lots of other folks ,sick or some other reason are at home ,can’t sleep at night , but can’t afford Foxtel ,they can access the NEWS OF THE DAY ! It’s a great idea , people will use it just to check up on what is going on instead of having to watch the drivel served up throughout the day by most TV channels , Get a life !! You knock anything thats new and shows promise you morons
well i think all you socalled intelligent news junkies have missed the point , there is no news at all on free to air TV at a large percentage of the day, so if mum is feeding her baby ,or grandpa is having a rest after a hour or two in the garden , and lots of other folks ,sick or some other reason are at home ,can’t sleep at night , but can’t afford Foxtel ,they can access the NEWS OF THE DAY ! It’s a great idea , people will use it just to check up on what is going on instead of having to watch the drivel served up throughout the day by most TV channels , Get a life !! You knock anything thats new and shows promise you morons
I’m all for a 24 hour ABC News channel so long as it doesn’t end up being Newsradio on TV. Don’t get me wrong I like Newsradio and listen to it quite often however it lacks an ability to produce much of its own programming and has next to no hard hitting investigating journalism and analysis of its own.
I would much prefer that this new channel starts off on a clean slate and has brand new programming of its own much in the same way that BBC World doesn’t poach programs wholesale from BBC 1 to fill in air time. There is a risk that this new channel could simply import existing ABC current affair programs and then fill the rest of the time with rolling news. This would be a poor outcome for both the ABC and Australian democracy.
Regarding the market share that such a channel would generate, there needs also to be consideration given to the social equity perspective. Even if FTTH was made available to every australian household, at current ISP prices most disadvantaged australians on centrelink payments would not be able to afford the service therefore there needs to be another means to help bridge the information divide and this is where the ABC News channel would come in.
It seems the ABC can do no right in the holier than thou eyes of NM. I think I prefer Kerry O’Briens ‘empty rituals’ to knee jerk diatribes like this. How about waiting to see what they are proposing?
Jason, can you get access to ‘Al-Jazeera English and global news networks: clash of civilizations or cross-cultural dialogue’? (at http://mwc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/2/3/263 )
It’s commented on at http://www.miller-mccune.com/media/the-age-of-affirmation-1698
ABC4 should, as “should”, be highly interactive.
We should be able to reflect comments on the fly.
In about 2015, when we are all at each others throats over a new flag, ABC4 could be central in providing democratic avenues to choices. It ought to be possible to choose a clear winner with a process that takes about six months.
Is 24-Hour News Good News?
no matter how bad it is… its got to be better than home shopping or god botherers in the early hours.
at least it will be another option.