Agreed…
What the hell is going on at the ABC? Fix it or bring back the old package
Let’s just hope it’s taking a little while because the European designers are redoing things on their end.
While I think these graphics have great potential, there’s much needed work to do: ticker, resolution on supers, clock, adding some local imagery into the state 7pm bulletin openers, consistent closer theme, etc.
It’s a little concerning this relaunch was in the works for so long and it appears there was barely any testing on real TVs, etc.
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Yeah. I agree.
Could be the case that it changed when management changed? Original plans scrapped and new designs were ordered?
Am I the only one who doesn’t mind the lack of a ticker? It’s actually quite refreshing.
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I’m also one who doesn’t mind the lack of a ticker/flipper on the ABC News channel.
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I challenge either of you to name another credible news channel who has the same view. If it’s important enough to have a flipper during News Breakfast and overnights, why isn’t it important enough to have one at 4:22pm on a Saturday afternoon where I have to wait 8 minutes before I get any kind of news from a news channel.
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Agreed about the news ticker. Absolutely ridiculous that they don’t have one. It’s a news channel! I expect to be able to get news at any time of the day.
I have to say this relaunch has been an epic failure in my books. Presentation wise it looks shit, sloppy and lazy. It’s almost as if ABC don’t know what it wants it to be.
For such a big lead up and launch, it’s been somewhat a very disappointing and useless project.
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There’s no need to get hysterical about it. They’ve told us there’s been a technical hitch. It obviously hasn’t been fixed yet. So relax.
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What kind of “technical hitch” allows the ticker to be seen for ~9 hours of the day but not the other 15?
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Not hysterical, just making an argument to back up my position when replying to an opinion opposite my own. Yes, waiting 8 minutes makes me sound needy, but imagine I said 4pm and I had to wait 30 minutes through a repeat of The Drum before I got any kind of up to date news. It’s the principle of what I think a news channel should be and provide.
On the technical difficulties, I figured the new font on the flipper and the fact that it is able to be put up for Breakfast and overnight suggested these difficulties had been fixed and what we have now is the final design/schedule. But I hope you’re right - I’d much prefer to eat my words and see it return 24/7.
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I’d rather that the ticker was only on dedicated news channels, but too often they’re not telling me anything useful so I don’t know if I mind the absense (too often it’s just a distraction with no meaningful content).
We all have a phone in our pocket & can look at the ABC app or mobile website, or alternatives, so if anyone’s desperately wanting to know what’s going on…there are options.
Also, I have to say, do you (the collective who are unhappy it isn’t fixed yet) mean to suggest that the needed people should be working through the long weekend to fix this ASAP? I don’t think it’s that critical (even if it were just paying overtime rates).
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Comments like this are ridiculous. Such immature hyperbole.
What makes it sloppy and lazy and shit?
Other than the fact there is no ticker? And the bug took them too long to get right?
Sure it’d be nice to see the ABC in HD but that costs a lot of money to change over every piece of equipment. The ABC can’t just do that with their funding situation. I hope we see it eventually.
Apart from those things it’s a great new look.
Unlike the commercials the ABC have launched everything at once. It’s a neat and fresh presentation and in fact is very co-ordinated right across multiple outlets. There are things that need fixing sure. But the idea that this is a giant failure or massive disappointment is a bit much.
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The ABC has eight state/territory editions of the 7pm news as well as the 7.30/Lateline studio plus the news channel studio. So that’s at least ten studios that would need upgrading for HD plus the control rooms, edit suites and so forth.
I’m sure that HD production will eventually come to ABC News, but all of these major upgrades take a substantial amount of time and taxpayers money. Moving over to a newer, more powerful system for the weather graphics (and getting the local forecasters used to the new system, etc.) was probably a massive technological change in itself for the moment!
Are there elements of the new look ABC News that need fixing? I’d probably have to say yes. But for the most part, I think they’ve done a rather impressive job at rolling out the new look. If you want to talk about Relaunch Fails, go and look at the commercial networks which have mainly taken the frustratingly slow and stilted approach to the most recent rebrands of their news services.
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For me there are so many poorly implemented aspects of this refresh that any positive features of the graphics are overwhelmed . Integration across platforms is OK, but we are talking about TV presentation here and if it doesn’t look right on TV it doesn’t matter whether it shows up OK on a website. And if this is what a network-wide roll out of new graphics looks like, I can see why some commercial networks have chosen the gradual implementation route.
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The problem with gradual implementation is it ruins the affect of actually having a relaunch, which is to be a reset of the brand. That’s why networks never ever allow small snippets of new looks to be shown; you don’t want a mish-mash of different looks. I remember reading on the old MS that the promos and signposts for the launch of boxy Nine were faithful to the old 7-days-7-colours look right up until 6am, even for shows airing the night of the relaunch.
RE: tickergate, there was a time before the news ticker/flipper, and people survived waiting 15 minutes for the headlines. That was before most people had online news in their own pockets. (Not-so-fun-fact: the ticker as a concept was actually invented on September 11th by CNN. It was copied by nearly all networks by that same night)*.
*fact check: popularised, not invented. Fox News, not CNN.
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Big whoops after the first headline
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4A7-WngiqXg&feature=youtu.be
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If we are talking about re-launching a channel brand then perhaps commentators should stop trying to compare the new ABC graphics to changes that have been seen to the graphics of commercial news bulletins. In those cases, it wasn’t a case of re-branding but an evolution of their brand. In hindsight, perhaps, that what the ABC should have done as well.
Regarding the history of news tickers, I wouldn’t believe everything on Wikipedia. Americans can be very insular and just because they hadn’t seen a news ticker before, doesn’t mean that was its first use.
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Update on news ticker - here is a quite comprehensive news ticker from Sky News UK during a report on the Sydney Olympics opening ceremony (I recorded it off Sky News Australia, hence their coverup)
Edit - CNN looked like this at the time
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Agreed. Thank you. 
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I actually read that in a book about journalism (American context though). Certainly the ticker existed, but I don’t believe many news channels made it a permanent feature until that day.
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