The Vicar of Dibley in Lockdown
Dawn French reprises her role as the Vicar of Dibley, delivering lockdown sermons to her parishioners via Zoom.
Three 10 minute episodes now available on iView. ABC TV will broadcast compilation episode on 1 January.
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Watched it, it was good I’m some points, however it definetly misses the Alice element though. RIP.
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I thought it was a bit flat until the Alice segment which was well done.
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I agree. Alice, Owen, and Frank have all passed away in real life. I think the actor who plays Jim, (no no no no yes no, lol) has retired.
The tribute to alice was great.
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I did enjoy the dig at the change in policy regarding masks.
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The six episodes are now available on iView from tonight (December 23), after the screening of the Christmas special on ABC TV in Sydney and Melbourne.
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New ABC-funded cooking mini-series Gourmet Lazy started today. Each episode will be released on ABC TV and iview’s YouTube, IGTV and Facebook accounts at 7am AEDT on Wednesdays.
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Yes. It was shown last year.
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ABC iview will ask for an email, first name (or pseudonym), year of birth, suburb or postcode, and gender. On gender there will be a “prefer not to say” option.
Head of digital product Joel Brydon said the data points were carefully chosen.
“Providing suburb or postcode doesn’t mean users will only get content relevant to their area; year of birth will allow the ABC to better protect those under 15 years from inappropriate content; and the gender question ensures a better understanding of the composition of ABC audiences,” he said.
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It’s still stupid. They shouldn’t collect data they don’t need, and certainly shouldn’t be insisting on it.
Just wait for the embarrassment when there’s a data breach following the next malware or ransomware attack.
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Watch for Sky News claim they’re going to sell the data. 
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I don’t understand why they’re making it mandatory.
SBS shouldn’t have made it mandatory, either! They are both funded by Australian taxpayers. They don’t have the same rationale as the BBC in the UK to verify TV licence status.
The forced registration process just pushes people away from the platform.
And if all they want is the postcode, age and gender…why not just have an anonymous guest registration where you can choose to punch that in each time you access iView?
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Don’t be surprised if you’re surprised by the new ABC iview
ABC iview is offering even more to Australians in 2021. The ABC’s video-on-demand (VOD) service helps viewers watch what they want, when they want it, with new personalised features that make it easier to enjoy outstanding programmes from the nation’s biggest collection of Australian content.
Rolling out from July, audiences will need an ABC account to watch ABC iview’s unrivalled catalogue of Australian drama, documentaries, news, comedies and children’s content. Account holders will also get the benefits of individual profiles for each household member and features such as personal programme recommendations – cutting down time spent endlessly scrolling for great content – and watchlists of shows they want to catch later on.
ABC iview will be a more convenient way to catch great content on-demand, enabling audiences to continue watching programmes across multiple devices – picking up a show on one screen where they left off on another.
Also launching is an eye-popping ABC iview brand campaign that promises to not only surprise but also delight with the introduction of beautiful puppet characters in Linh, Arj, and Gloria. The work is wrapped in the tagline “Don’t be surprised if you’re surprised”, which speaks to the breadth and depth of content available on ABC iview.
Diana Costantini, Head of Creative ABC MADE, said: “The VOD space is heavily populated with a lot of fantastic creative work in market. Our aim was to craft a campaign that stood out from the crowd, piquing the interest and enticing audiences to jump on to ABC iview to experience the vast range of content we have on offer. Of course, if you’re going to run a campaign line around ‘surprise’ you also want the campaign itself to be surprising. We think Linh, Arj and Gloria deliver that in spades.”
The puppets were designed in-house and then made by puppetry and digital media expert, Kay Yasugi, from Digital Seagull, who was also the puppeteer on the shoot. Bringing an extra layer of entertainment and surprise to the idea, the ABC MADE team lured the conventionally challenged Sam Simmons to the microphone as narrator of the campaign, which also plays out across ABC radio and television.
“Our puppets don’t speak, so the narrator was always an important consideration when crafting the work,” Diana said. “Rather than engaging a standard voice-over person, we auditioned actors and comedians. Sam’s silliness and off script commentary won us over. He’s true-blue original and we’re stoked he could bring so much to this project.”
ABC’s Director of Audiences, Leisa Bacon, said: “Over three million Australians have already created an ABC account. Logging into ABC iview with an ABC account will help audiences to discover content that they may not have otherwise.
“We know that audiences choose their streaming services based on the content offer and the ABC serves up award-winning content that spans everything from drama to comedy, docos to news and, of course, it’s all for free. The ABC MADE team has produced a stand-out integrated campaign that will help audiences to re-evaluate ABC iview.”
Meet the newest ABC iview ambassadors Arj and Linh below:
Stan is allowed to have R 18+ content as they are not a subscription television service as defined by the Broadcasting Services Act, and they have a access-control system. You have register to use Stan and be 18 years old or over.
Could any of the network catch-up services, particularly ABC and SBS, be thinking of having R 18+ content available in the future, assuming they implemented a strict access-control system? I haven’t been able to work out if the catch-up services are legally able to do this.
Saw a new clip featuring Charlie Pickering on ABC TV this evening before the 7pm news, promoting the mandatory login.
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Perhaps I’ll use his name and date of birth to sign up for an account. Wouldn’t it be funny if the ABC ended up with dozens of account sign ups with the name Charlie Pickering and August 29 birthdate?
I’ve always used disposable email addresses, pseudonyms and false information to sign up for these things in the past. I don’t know why they expect they should get anybody’s personal details to use as they wish.
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Who cares? It’s so you can personalise and save your watched progress. ABC is hardly going to data mine for commercial purposes.