Gemma Veness is presenting the daytime bulletins (filling in for Dan Bourchier), with David Chau presenting the evening bulletins (filling in for Meredith Sheehan).
Monday October 7-Friday October 11
Melissa Clarke will be presenting Afternoon Briefing (filling in for Greg Jennet)
Kathryn Robinson will be presenting evenings (filling in for Joe O’Brien)
Girish Sawlani (Monday-Thursday), and Manny Tsigas (Friday) will be presenting The World (filling in for Yvonne Young)
Friday October 11 Only
Andrea Nierhoff will be presenting the mid-evening bulletins
Saturday October 12 and Sunday October 13
Ruby Cornish will be presenting the daytime bulletins (filling in for Dan Bourchier)
No …not on last week, nor the week before, and just Friday morning the week before that. Dan was originally scheduled at the start of this year, to present Th/Fri mornings and weekends. But since the start of July (14 weeks, 30/7 - 6/10), he has only presented only 7 Th/Fri mornings and only 1 weekend(30/6,1/7). I have long suspected that Dan was not happy with the hand he was dealt with the initial scheduling, particularly the weekend role. In the first half of the year he took two months leave (29/4 - 27/6).
For the record, for the second half of this year so far, the number of sessions presented by each of the more regular presenters are:
Kath 40, Gemma 36, Ros 33, Lorna 22, Dan 9, Ruby 7.
So we have a weird situation that has evolved this year where IMO, the ABC’s best female presenter is used as a fill-in, and gets more hours than anyone else … Kath is not the main fill-in, she is the main presenter!
Her job is to fill-in for the other presenters when they are away, which is why she fills in the most for Dan.
Meanwhile, it looks like the ABC have disabled the ability to rewind back on the YouTube stream - previously you could rewind it to any point within the previous 12 hours.
Of course I know that Kath is filling-in! You’re missing my point. If Kath is presenting more than anyone else, then (by definition), she has become the main presenter… it’s just that she doesn’t have a scheduled timeslot, apart from the original Fri afternoons, which has been lost in all this this scheduling mayhem. And Kath doesn’t fill-in most for Dan … of those 40 sessions she has only filled-in 3 times on Th mornings and one full weekend for him, a total of 5 sessions.
Might have something to do with the US Presidential debates - they turn off the YouTube stream for those (at least the 2nd one), so maybe when they turn the stream back on they forget to enable it?
Either that or it might be something on YouTube’s end.
ABC hinting at some changes to ABC News in 2025, possibly (finally) going HD? The question does specifically ask about changes to playout, so one could hope.
Patricia Karvelas moving to expanded role across ABC NEWS platforms
Leading ABC NEWS journalist and presenter Patricia Karvelas will take on an expanded role across platforms in 2025 with a key anchoring role on the ABC NEWS Channel in national politics.
Karvelas will also host a new politics podcast, in addition to continuing to present public discussion forum Q+A and weekly political wrap The Party Room.
The new role means she will be leaving Radio National after 10 years with the network, seven with RN Drive and three with RN Breakfast.
“After a decade it’s time to change it up and I’m ready to lean into a new cross-platform role,” Karvelas says.
“I want to thank the ABC for the opportunities it has provided me through my decade here. It continues to be the most important public institution in the country in my view and I want to help build its connections with voters across the country.
“I’ll miss the Radio National audience enormously. There’s something magical about waking up when the country is asleep to bring the big news and conversations to the country.”
ABC Director, News Justin Stevens said: “Patricia Karvelas is a talented presenter and formidable political journalist. She has done a superb job over many years on the RN network.
“In 2025 we want her to play a bigger role across our platforms to cover politics for our audience. We’re excited to see her have a broader audience across audio, TV and digital for ABC NEWS.”
Details of the new audio and TV projects will be announced in coming weeks, with the new presenter of RN Breakfast also to be announced soon.
Of course ABC News Channel used to be ABC’s HD channel in the time that networks made one of their multis HD and the main channel was only available in SD.
