Australia’s ABC to publish an online weekly title

The ABC is to launch a new tablet-based current affairs publication offering a mixture of video, audio and written content from across the corporation. 

According to industry publication Mumbrella, while the public service broadcaster already offers a number of apps, including its iView catchup TV service, the new product – as yet unnamed – will be more magazine like with a weekly publication schedule and intended to be available in the Apple and Android newsstands where it will be next to tablet editions of existing magazines and newspapers.

The project is being spearheaded by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s innovation department and is one of the biggest moves to date by Angela Clark who took charge of the unit last year.

The tablet product will focus on current affairs with broadcast material from across the corporation. It will be free.

Clark told Mumbrella the product would be unlike anything currently in the market, describing it as a “long-form tablet app”.

The app will feature eight to ten stories a week told through writing, video and audio content from across the network as well as relevant material from the ABC archives.

Clark said: “Behaviour that we’re seeing around tablets, it is your book before bed, where you go and have some personal space more in-depth time rather than that breaking news habit.

“We have a lot of rich media and video content and a lot of it is in a linear form and we’re looking at exploring that inner form that’s not linear that gives people time to absorb it in different ways to enter the story.”

As well as appealing to people who already engage with ABC content through a tablet the app aims to reach a younger demographic and those who do not regularly access the ABC.