there’s a new place to go to get all your news on the ABC.

ABC TV Blog is the new official blog for all news and info on the ABC.

http://blogs.abc.net.au/abc_tv/

It also contains links to the ABC facebook and Twitter pages, to give you even more opportunities to follow the ABC online.

So go there, now!

This blog will no longer be updated.

Excellent news!

The ABC has confirmed that the ABC’s new breakfast news programme ‘Breakfast’ will begin screening on ABC2 in September.

The programme, to be broadcast out of Melbourne, will be presented by award winning journalists Virginia Trioli and Peter Lyoyd.

The programme will broadcast Monday to Friday from 6am until 10am – far longer than the programmes rivals, and that’s before factoring a lack of ads into the equation!

Of course, ABC2 still has a small audience, only 40% of households can even receive it. But all that will change over the next 5 years and soon Breakfast will be able to be enjoyed by everyone.

It will also be a testing ground for the ABC’s new Continuous News Centre – with the hope that the programme will eventually morph into ABC4 – a 24 hour news channel.  

Lateline was cleared this week by the ABC’s independent complaints review panel over 30 points of complaint regarding their expose of child sexual abuse in remote Aboriginal communities. 

The complaint, all part of an attempt by some with ulterior motives to prevent the reporting of this important issue have not taken their defeat lying down.

Chris Graham, from the National Indigenous Times newspaper, was at it again on crikey.com.au this week, suggesting that the ABC independent review panel was not independent at all.

When posters on the site criticised this baseless suggestion, he deomonstrated MacBeth style paranoia and refused to respond to arguments levelled against him. Truly spectacular to see.

In fact, the only complaint upheld was that a piece of footage should have displayed the tag ‘file footage’.   

Quelle surprise indeed!

whispers are that Virginia Trioli will host the new ABC Breakfast news programme on ABC2. If she does it will mean saying goodbye to Lateline (NO!) and possibly Sunday Arts (NOOOOO!) …as well as a return to Melbourne, from where the show will be produced.

If anyone can make it a success, VIrginia can. But how will she cope with the early starts?

Well colour me completely unsurprised.

As we all knew, ABC News is NOT biased. The new ‘Director of Editorial Content’ AKA the Chief Censor Paul Chadwick has completed a recent study into the accuracy of three of the ABC’s key news pogrammes: AM, The World Today and PM.

He found that 95.3% of stories were wholly or substantially accurate as to facts, while 97.3% were wholly or substantially accurate as to context.

So there you go.

Meanwhile, we are still waiting for ANY evidence from the ABC detractors (i.e. their chief competitor, News Ltd)  as to the presence of bias. But it seems that this will not be forthcoming. Instead, News Ltd is content to continue their weekly articles simply declaring the existing of bias throughout the organsiation. Interesting form of ‘argument’, isn’t it?

Below is the complete list of winners from this years ABC Local Radio awards. Congratulations to all the winners!

Station of the Year (Metropolitan)
666 ABC Canberra

Station of the Year (Regional)
630 ABC North Queensland

Broadcaster of the Year
Red Symons – 774 ABC Melbourne

Rural Reporter of the Year
Kim Honan – ABC Mid North Coast

Sports Broadcaster of the Year
Quentin Hull – general coverage

Online Feature of the Year (joint winners)
Fiona Churchman & Ping Lo (for Stolen Generation)
Kim Honan for – Eating Close to Home: The Locavore Challenge 

Website of the Year
Nick Kittel & Ping Lo for abc.net.au/canberra

Local Program of the Year (Metropolitan & Networked)
Mornings with Madonna King – 612 ABC Brisbane

Local Program of the Year (Regional)
Drive with Roisin McCann – ABC Northern Tasmania

Outstanding Coverage of a Local Story or Emergency (by an Individual, Program or Station)
1233 ABC Newcastle for (The June Long Weekend Storms 2007) 

The Paul Bodington Award for an Outstanding Radio Feature/Package by an Individual
Phil Ashley-Brown, 702 ABC Sydney for (Stella’s Lung Transplant) 

Outside Broadcast of the Year (Metropolitan)
Breakfast with Adam Spencer, 702 ABC Sydney – World in Sydney

Outside Broadcast of the Year (Regional)
Northern Territory Country Hour – Outback Odyssey

Community Event of the Year
Heywire in Canberra 2008

Promotions Producer of the Year
Andrew Taylor – 774 ABC Melbourne & ABC Local Radio Victoria

Producer of the Year
Brad McCahon – 720 ABC Perth

Best New Talent on Local Radio (joint winners)
Andy Muirhead – 936 ABC Hobart
Ping Lo – 666 ABC Canberra

Marketing Campaign of the Year
Natalene Muscat & Felicity Greenland, 774 ABC Melbourne (100% Pure Footy Finals)

The incredibly talented and much loved ABC Radio presenter, JOhn Cargher, has passed away at the age of 89.

Mr Cargher had only just recorded his final edition of ‘Singers of Renown’, the hugely popular music programme on Radio National which he had hosted for more than 40 years.

He will be much missed. May he rest in peace.

Hugely popular ABC comedian, John Clarke, is to be inducted into the Logie Hall of Fame this year.

Clarke, who along with Bryan Dawe have entertained audiences for decades, including through their weekly 7.3O Report skits, has been living in Australia after migrating from his native New Zealand in the 1970s.

Well done to John, and here’s hoping we hear him for many years to come.

A bizarre and worrying rumour has emerged.

Crikey is reporting that the ABC is secretly planning to sell off it’s 40+ ABC Shops, possibly to Dymocks, which already operate some of the more than 60 ‘ABC Centres’, within their bookshops.

Such a move seems ridiculous. Why would you sell off the only aspect of the Corporation which makes, rather than spends, money?

Could it perhaps be an identification by ABC Commercial Head Lynley Marshall of the inefficiency and poor management quality of those at the top of the ABC Shop hierarchy? Possibly. Or could she have lookd at the BBC Shops, which were recently closed in favour of an online store? Already ABC Shop Online makes more profit per annum than any other ABC Shop, with the exception of the flagship ‘Queen Victoria Building’ store in Sydney’s CBD.

This news comes on top of the plan to outsource production staff at the ABC (which Crikey estimates could involve the sacking of around 800 staff). The ABC will certainly be a far leaner organisation if these plans come to fruition…but will it be for the better in the long run?  

The ABC continues to relaunch it’s websites. Following on from the successful recent relaunches of ABC Television, ABC News and Triple J (and the appallingly bad relaunch of ‘ABC Local’, which continues to be very user unfriendly, gaudy and rushed), the ABC has relaunched it’s homepage.

Sporting a new green and grey look, which harks back to the look the homepage had in the early years of the decade, the homepage now is simplified, with less text and more links. Each section has it’s own ‘pod’ and flash is used generously.

Radio streaming from the homepage is also a priority, and local weather and radio remains on the right hand side of the page.

The only problem with the refresh is the lack of innovation it offers users. This was a fantastic opportunity for the ABC to create a homepage which was adaptable to the user. Looking at the recently relaunched BBC Homepage ( www.bbc.co.uk ) demonstrates the possibilities. on the BBC Homepage, users can decide what to display: don’t want the ‘Television pod’? click on ‘remove’ and it’s gone! You can customise the news sections displayed, and even what colour you want!

The ABC homepage, while visually an improvement on the past one, is none the less already outdated by not offering cusotmisation. A great opportunity missed.