Every working day, News Channel Mornings presenter Joe O'Brien walks into the studio ready for anything to happen, anywhere, at any moment.
A prime minister is toppled, a natural disaster hits, a pandemic sweeps across the world and he is suddenly steering live coverage of a rapidly unfolding story.
"Some of the key moments for me have come through the bushfires," says Joe O'Brien, who has been with the channel since it was launched on July 22, 2010.
When big news breaks, O'Brien (and the other News Channel presenters) do their best to provide calm and authoritative reporting of what is often a confusing and fast-moving situation.
While the continuous news team is trying to get information to air swiftly, getting it right is more important.
"It's a team effort to get as clear a picture of what's happened as quickly as possible," says O'Brien.
"There are around five producers methodically working through any pictures that might come in from our local, state, national and international news teams but also seeing what can be verified on social media to add to that."
"It is invariably difficult to get clear information and pictures early on, so it's the presenter's role through those initial minutes to collate as much information as possible to keep people informed and keep the coverage going so people just tuning in are aware of what's going on," he says.
"Interview planners and directors in the control room are also a critical part of the team and the supervising producer and executive producer make sure it all goes as smoothly and accurately as possible.
"In the studio, the autocue operator has a hell of a job keeping up with me as I wander all over the place in my discussions, tracking a story as it evolves."
It's an operation that's been fine-tuned over a decade, since News Director Gaven Morris, who was involved in the launch of the Al Jazeera English network in the Middle East, and predecessor Kate Torney, pitched the idea to then-managing director Mark Scott.
"When I returned to the ABC in 2008, it was still a very linear broadcast operation. While we had NewsRadio, then in the Radio division, and a fledgling online news service, we had little capacity or a culture to broadcast significant news events live on television," recalls Gaven Morris.
"On the cusp of Barack Obama's election as the first African-American US President, we had no plans to extend our broadcasts or offer live coverage of this big historical moment.
"It was also obvious that audiences were rapidly seeking more news and information through online and digital services and this would require the ABC being geared up to a more continuous coverage mindset.
"Making the jump from linear, scheduled broadcast bulletins to fully on-demand digital services would have been an enormous leap, possibly beyond our newsroom culture at the time.
"Moving into a live television environment seemed a sensible way to start the continuous news journey, to serve audiences in more responsive ways and to provide Australians with greater return on the investment in our newsgathering and production resources."
It was a massive undertaking, achieved with a budget half of what had been asked for in the original pitch, and in a ridiculously tight timeframe.
The channel, initially called News 24, was announced in January, 2010 and the launch was planned for October to coincide with an expected federal election. After prime minister Kevin Rudd was deposed by Julia Gilliard in June, the election was brought forward to July.
And so began a mad scramble to get the channel on air in time for the start of the campaign — three months earlier than had been planned.
"Shell-shocked and traumatised," is how Morris describes his feelings on the first night.
"The process to get the channel to air months early and in a federal election campaign with brand new technology and a team still learning how to produce live news was, in hindsight, too much to attempt all at once.
"While the launch night went off without a hitch, it took many months for the channel to fully get into its stride."
But Morris says the turning point came as floods swept across much of Queensland in the summer of 2010/2011, culminating in a dramatic inundation of Brisbane.
"Audiences spiked dramatically and never really went backwards from there.
"While there have been programming changes and expanded content offerings, the core mission has remained.
"And, as we've seen across the last six months, ABC News Channel is, more than ever, a key source of news events as they're unfolding.
"Throughout the Black Summer of bushfires, the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic impact that's followed, people have turned on the channel more than ever before or increasingly, sought it out via livestreams on iview, the ABC News website and app or via YouTube or other social platforms.
"It now has a central place in the news experience for so many Australians and it's impossible to imagine following recent events without the channel."
Over a decade, the channel has built a strong audience, this year reaching 4.2 million people in metropolitan and regional areas on average weekly, up 37 per cent on the 2019 weekly average, according to ratings research firm OzTAM.
While broadcast audiences are still large, they are steadily declining across the TV industry.
News consumers in particular want to be able to watch news when it suits them, on the device of their choice.
For the News Channel, growth in on-demand live streaming, for example on iview and YouTube, is already offsetting the longer-term broadcast audience decline.
Under current Managing Editor Tim Ayliffe, the News Channel is transitioning into a fully video-on-demand (VOD) operation.
Currently, 59 per cent of Australians use a VOD service weekly and, based on current trends, streaming video on demand could exceed more than 90 per cent of the population by 2025 — underpinned by better connectivity, take-up of smart TVs and the proliferation of subscription VOD services.
Morris says the News Channel has to meet that audience need and wants to see it develop into Australia's leading digital/on-demand news service.
"Producing news and information offerings in video, available not just on the live television channel but also whenever people might seek to stay informed on iView, social and digital platforms is increasingly a priority.
"Explaining complex issues and topics in more detail through video explainers and seeking to be more relevant through the range of stories covered and the perspectives presented are also front of mind as the channel continues to grow up and move onwards."
In these tumultuous times, there's plenty of news to be told.
And while a lot of it isn't good, Joe O'Brien feels privileged to have had a key role in keeping Australians informed over the past decade.
"Being out on the road during the drought has been very important in telling the stories of the people on the land who are dealing with some of the most challenging circumstances," says O'Brien.
"It's been good to maintain that face-to-face connection with people out in regional Australia because that's where I began.
"And the News Channel is another platform on which they can tell the stories of the people in their communities.
"It's been an honour to be part of this channel from the beginning."
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiYGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy9hYm91dC9iYWNrc3RvcnkvMjAyMC0wNy0xOS9hYmMtbmV3cy1jaGFubmVsLTEwLXllYXJzLW9uLWFpci8xMjQ2NjkzNNIBJ2h0dHBzOi8vYW1wLmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvYXJ0aWNsZS8xMjQ2NjkzNA?oc=5
2020-07-18 23:01:00Z
CBMiYGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy9hYm91dC9iYWNrc3RvcnkvMjAyMC0wNy0xOS9hYmMtbmV3cy1jaGFubmVsLTEwLXllYXJzLW9uLWFpci8xMjQ2NjkzNNIBJ2h0dHBzOi8vYW1wLmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvYXJ0aWNsZS8xMjQ2NjkzNA
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