The ACTF international distribution team will return to MIP Junior and MIPCOM over the next two weeks for the first time since 2019, launching eight series to international broadcasters.
Heading the line-up for the ACTF is Crazy Fun Park, the upcoming live action horror-comedy series for teens by Werner Film Productions for the ABC.
https://actf.com.au/news/view/20618/crazy-fun-park-headlines-extensive-actf-offering-at-mipcom
Seems that Nine is no longer involved in production of the series (it partly funded production of season 1).
Commercial networks have a free pass on children’s television so won’t fund anything now. Very sad.
Sunday 20 November 9.00am
The Kaleidoscope Project supports and showcases the best of Australia’s next generation of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CaLD) filmmakers, by offering career changing opportunities and mentorship.
From many highly competitive and creative applicants to consider, it was the films of emerging Australian CaLD creatives Lara Köse, Mary Duong, Rachel Choi, Taku Mbudzi and Ravi Chand that impressed the most.
With the support and guidance of ABC and Screen Australia executives, these talented, young filmmakers have created four standalone films that reflect and capture the experience of young Australians from a CaLD person living in Australia today.
The Kaleidescope Films premiere on ABC ME, the ABC ME app and ABC iview on Sunday 20 November.
Production credit: The Kaleidescope Films are created by Mary Duong and Rachel Choi for Viv’s Silly Mango, Taku Mbudzi for Gugu naGogo, Ravi Chand Namaste Yoga and Lara Köse for Yaz Queens.
• Viv’s Silly Mango, a film by creators Mary Duong and Rachel Choi, offers an honest and playful insight into growing up as young people from migrant or refugee backgrounds in Brisbane through the perspectives of three Asian pre-teens - Viv, Esther, and Nikki - as they navigate the meaning of family and friendship in their discovery of riot grrrl music and most importantly, themselves.
• Gugu naGogo, created by Taku Mbudzi, explores intergenerational and cultural relationships and struggles between daughter, mother, and grandmother, through the eyes of Gugu, a 12-year-old budding astronomer living in a small Australian town, far removed from Zimbabwe, where her Gogo lives.
• Creator Ravi Chand draws on his experiences with Namaste Yoga, about Shiv, a 12-year-old Indian-Australian boy who hates being Indian. Shiv struggles with internalised oppression, whereas his 8-year-old sister Kaali is proud of her culture and immerses herself in it. Shiv experiences his culture being taken, commercialised and “taught" back to him, and learns to reclaim his culture on his own terms through his practice and connection with the true essence of yoga.
• Yaz Queens, created by Lara Köse, explores the relationship dynamics between 10-year-old Yaz and her father after eight years of living apart in different countries, and how their cultural differences play a role in their struggle to relate, but ultimately, how their shared love of music helps bridge that divide and brings them closer together.
How long has ABC Me been running anime during its closedown period? Caught something around 12am while channel surfing this morning.
Might have started going 24 hours.
Nope. Still shuts down at approx 10.30pm.
However, for some oddly reason, and not advertised/ published in guides, ABC Me has shown in the past a random episode of a show at around midnight-ish. Not sure how frequent they do this though, and also not sure of the reasoning behind this.
A few nights ago I saw an episode of The Adventures of Figaro Pho airing on ABC Me. Was probably just before midnight. I remember thinking that was unusual.
Recorded the closedown last night. Another anime episode around 11:30pm and an ABC News update around 3:30am. Again, this isn’t in any of the guides.
edit: thanks @TelevisionAU for moving - couldn’t find the ABC ME thread in search 
Perhaps Easter eggs.
It’s been happening for years.
About half of the non-press release posts in here seem to be about programming in the closedown hours 
Didn’t new Spicks & Specks play on ABC ME in an early morning timeslot during closedown before the new season started?
Captured last night’s ‘closedown’ through to start up this morning. Sorry ABC Jazz fans - I’ve fast-forwarded through most of the holding slide, however have added a timecode for good measure.
Happens all the time on ABC3 (ABC ME). Is like the ABC use the downtime to burn up run rights on some programs, who knows?
Really they should fill the downtime with rage all night instead of the one hour they do now with repeating recent episodes.
Thanks for uploading that video. Was a good watch.
Yep, as we discussed, its still odd with that anime episode out of nowhere at midnight. Followed by “close”, and what’s the point of that pre-recorded news update at 3.40am?
Why dont they just advertise whats on? Instead of having “close” for the 8 or so hours…
I think you might be onto something here. Radiant is the anime in question and is available to stream on iView - note that it is listed as an ABC ME program. A quirk in the licensing deal with NHK?
Still doesn’t explain why they wouldn’t put the program in the guide when they’re only closing down little more than an hour earlier. Has to be plenty of filler available if extending rage isn’t feasible.
This I don’t have a single theory about. I imagine it’s the same update that airs before ABC TV Plus closes down for the night about two hours earlier.
One other observation: there are three separate EPG entries for ‘ABC ME Programs Resume At 6am’, which line up with the timings from the clips above.
10:50 PM - 12:24 AM [94 mins] - 12:24 AM is the end of Radiant
12:24 AM - 3:40 AM [196 mins] - 90-second ABC News update begins at 3:40 AM
3:41 AM - 5:59 AM [138 mins]
This is much more fun than home shopping 
It almost feels like a missed opportunity to extend what I thought was a push to older teen programming on ABC Me (hence things like Rage being on after ~9pm).
Seems like they’ve been burning off Radiant in that midnight time slot (more or less) seven nights a week since November, it looks like - the “watch until” on iView for most of the episodes has a 12.25am timestamp on it which suggests it’s not unintentional - but then the last several episodes were all dumped on iView on New Year’s Eve. Use it or lose it, I guess?
The 3.40am news update thing is positively weird, like they had to feed it somewhere to then update their “News in 90 seconds” page and vodcast elsewhere (ABC News 24 being knee deep in Deutsche Welle at that time).
Worth flagging that it wasn’t the first time it was shown though. Wikis relating to the anime suggested they premiered the dub in the first week of 2021 and ran on Saturday afternoons - so it would be repeat rights they’re burning if anything.