An opinion piece in The Age yesterday comments about the introduction of kids’ channel ABC3.
What I can’t figure out is why, about the same time ABC3 has started up, ABC2 has dropped most of its non-kids programming on weekends during the daytime (eg before 6pm) and replaced it with more kids’ programmes.
Compare for instance the listings of Sunday November 29th to to Sunday December 6th. The former included Scrapheap Challenge, Father Ted, and a bunch of music shows. The latter is wall-to-wall Magic Roundabout, Sesame Street, Miffy and Shaun the Sheep.
I can understand ABC1 having extensive kids’ programming given some people still don’t receive the digital channels, but if ABC3 is dedicated to kids’ shows, why does ABC2 need to show them as well, given ABC2 and ABC3 have precisely the same availability?
6 replies on “ABC: wall-to-wall kids shows”
ABC2 is aimed at younger kids, ABC3 5-16 year olds. I’ll be happy just so long as they don’t play around with ABC2 in the evenings, it’s often the best channel on offer, and the music shows on the weekend were fantastic, will miss them.
Daniel
good observation.
Now we can watch an episode of a kid’s program on ABC1, watch the same episode a day later on ABC1 (again), then watch it a week later on ABC2, then a few days later on ABC3.
Isn’t digital TV great. So many shows to choose from!
Pay TV just launched a bunch of new channels, some of which are for kids so I imagine ABC 2 &3 are competing for viewing audiences.
Fair point Tony.
Check this web page: http://www.abc.net.au/abckids/guide/default.htm
…which shows the ABC1/2/3 kids’ programmes side-by-side. On weekdays from 9am-midday and from 3pm-6pm all 3 channels are showing kids’ stuff… I don’t see why ABC1 and ABC2 such similar stuff at the same time.
At 10:15am for instance ABC2 is showing Postman Pat and ABC1 is showing Guess With Jess, the Postman Pat spinoff series!
Oh, and I think it’s silly that BTN Daily switched to ABC3’s News On 3 (so no longer available on analogue) — and that it clashes with the ABC1 news bulletin.
Ah, BTN, I remember that fondly.
Tony, I hear what you’re saying. I tuned in to ABC3 and thought “what? Owen’s not going to like this” until I realised Saturday mornings were chock full of things like Iron Man; Owen doesn’t quite get what’s going on, but there are explosions and no ads, so I reckon it’ll be a winner.
Mark will happily watch whatever is on TV as long as there’s colour and movement.
They need to bring back the Chaser. Or perhaps they should repeat the Chaser shows (and associated things: CNNNN etc).
Hey, the other thing that freaks me out is the semi-random order of the programs – but I digress: that’s more like Channel 7 (whose punctuality figures are worse than Connex).
Nick.