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ABC News to launch 5:30 national bulletin

The ABC is set to announce a new 5.30pm national news bulletin presented from Perth.

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The ABC is set to announce a new 5.30pm national news bulletin presented from Perth studios to be screened on ABC1 from early in the New Year.

The West Australian reports James McHale will front the bulletin, produced at 2:30pm WST, with a second, updated version to be broadcast live to WA audiences at 5:30pm.

ABC has previously presented national bulletins with The National years before ABC News 24, but ultimately the idea failed.

“Planning is underway to launch a new national ABC news bulletin next year,” ABC Perth news director Kim Jordan told WA Today.

“Details are yet to be nailed down, but it’s a pretty exciting expansion of the ABC news offering.”

ABC is looking to step up its news focus to more breaking news, especially as paywalls go up around the country.

Maybe ABC will also finally revamp its woefully under-utilised 6-7pm offering too.

20 Responses

  1. I suppose it makes sense for those of us who can’t always be there at 5pm for the 10 News and watch one of the Multi Channel Offerings at 6pm for the ABC to have an extra service.Good luck

    They seem to do rather well at 7pm too given that Home and Away Aside all the competition is mostly made up currently of outdated long gone American Done to Death Sitcoms.

  2. @ snoopy888

    I’m just one viewer but if I’m home or have access to a television I never or rarely turn it on before 6pm. Now there is a reason to do so. I hope it does well. But I really want them to stick with it as it might take awhile for some to catch on that it exists. It’s the problem with making paper TV Guides not worth the paper they are written on. If you’re a normal viewer it’s so much harder to see where the new shows are without them. Ironically making me forget about the main commercial channels.

  4. Wait they plan to make it worthwhile turning the TV on at 5.30pm when it’s possible? Love it!

    Next all they have to do is have a State based update between 6.00-6.05pm and play classic era Doctor Who at 6.05-6.30pm. Then it would be perfect. Plus maybe in ten years the BBC could fully animate all the missing episodes with the existing soundtracks (they’ve only done it for a few episodes so far) . Then they could play the complete run from 1963-1989 from either Monday to Thursday or Friday. Plus a warning that the animated episodes were missing so it doesn’t confuse viewers. I know it’s just wishful thinking and probably won’t happen.

  5. After spending a week in WA recently, I’d have thought a 10 or 10.30pm bulletin on News 24 would make more sense then watching the overnight programmes at 10pm western time.

  6. I would like to see this work for the ABC this time around. If it does, it should hopefully boost up the 6-7pm slot too. That slot is usually a worry of late.

  7. @idiotbox – the reality is that most people still tend to stick with the main channels (ie the analogue ones). When someone thinks that they might like to catch some news at 5:30pm, ABC24 is nowhere near the top of their list, if they even consider it at all.

    I consider myself to be pretty plugged-in and multi-channel aware, as well as liking quality news, and I’ve hardly ever watched ABC24. It’s just not on my radar.

  8. @PJC
    They’re getting to it. Already done in Queensland because they built an entirely new building so it made sense to do it at the same time. Supposed to be happening progressively everywhere else, but I too thought it would happen sooner.

  10. If you wanted ABC news at that time of the night wouldn’t you just tune into ABCNews24? Seems like a waste putting a news show on the main channel at that time of night. If anyone does watch it, it will take viewers away from the 7pm bulletin which has been doing well this year. Seems like programming suicide to me.

  11. ABC24 has Capital Hill, The Drum, etc. 5:30 to 7pm – no straight news bulletins. There’s 11 other channels with non-news at 5:30 so a national bulletin starting at 5:30 sounds great.

  12. Don’t really understand why they are doing this….ABC have a National news channel. So why do they require a 5.30pm national news bulletin each day.

  13. The West Australian piece says “The decision to use the Perth newsroom for the bulletin is logical because the local studio is not generally in use at 2.30pm, when the bulletin would be filmed and broadcast live to the east coast.”
    It won’t be “filmed”. It won’t even be pre-recorded, hopefully. Sydney and Melbourne can’t accommodate a 5:30 news. Besides, great to see WA get a go at something national.

  18. @JohnW – I suspect because eastern state’s crews will be far too busy preparing the local 7.00pm bulletin to put another bulletin to air at 5.30pm. The team in Perth have time to spare.

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