The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is the national broadcaster of Australia. It is principally funded by direct grants from the Australian government and is administered by a government-appointed board. The ABC is a publicly owned body that is politically independent and accountable such as through its production of annual reports and is bound by provisions contained within the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013 and the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013, with its charter enshrined in legislation, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act 1983. ABC Commercial, a profit-making division of the corporation, also helps to generate funding for content provision.
The Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) is an Australian hybrid-funded public service broadcaster. About 80 percent of funding for the company is derived from the Australian Government. SBS operates six TV channels and seven radio networks. SBS Online is home to SBS On Demand video streaming service.
Television broadcasting in Australia began officially on 16 September 1956, with the opening of TCN-9, quickly followed by national and commercial stations in Sydney and Melbourne, all these being in 625-line black and white. The commencement date was designed so as to provide coverage of the Olympic Games in Melbourne. It has now grown to be a nationwide system that includes a broad range of public, commercial, community, subscription, narrowcast, and amateur stations.
Public broadcasting involves radio, television, and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. Public broadcasters receive funding from diverse sources including license fees, individual contributions, public financing, and commercial financing, and claim to avoid both political interference and commercial influence.
Network 10 is an Australian commercial television network owned by Ten Network Holdings, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Paramount Global's UK & Australia division. As one of five national free-to-air networks, 10's owned-and-operated stations can be found in the state capital cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth while affiliates extend the network to regional areas of the country.
The Seven Network is a major Australian commercial free-to-air television network. It is owned by Seven West Media Limited, and is one of the five main free-to-air television networks in Australia. The network's headquarters are located in Sydney.
Television in Australia began experimentally as early as 1929 in Melbourne with radio stations 3DB and 3UZ, and 2UE in Sydney, using the Radiovision system by Gilbert Miles and Donald McDonald, and later from other locations, such as Brisbane in 1934.
Mass media in Australia spans traditional and digital formats, and caters mostly to its predominantly English-speaking population. It is delivered in a variety of formats including radio, television, paper, internet and IPTV. Varieties include local, regional, state, federal and international sources of media, reporting on Australian news, opinion, policy, issues and culture.
ABC Family is an Australian free-to-air television channel owned by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and part of its ABC Television network. The channel broadcasts a range of family and teen entertainment programming. The channel operates between the hours of 07:30pm and 04:00am AEST/AEDT daily. The channel's bandwidth is used for the ABC Kids channel for young children during the remaining hours of the day.
Community television in Australia is a form of free-to-air non-commercial citizen media in which a television station is owned, operated and/or programmed by a community group to provide local programming to its broadcast area. In principle, community television is another model of facilitating media production and involvement by private citizens and can be likened to public-access television in the United States and community television in Canada.
Digital terrestrial television in Australia commenced on 1 January 2001 in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth using DVB-T standards. The phase out of analogue PAL transmissions began on 30 June 2010 and was completed by 10 December 2013.
ABC News, also known as ABC News and Current Affairs and overseas as ABC Australia, is a public news service produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Broadcasting within Australia and the rest of the world, the service covers both local and world affairs.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation had its origins in a licensing scheme for individual radio stations administered by the Postmaster-General's Department established in 1923 into a content provider in radio, television and new media. From 1928 the National Broadcasting Service was established to take over 12 radio licences as a national broadcaster, while the Australian Broadcasting Company was responsible for supplying programs to the service.
ABC TV, formerly known as ABC1, is an Australian national public television network. It is owned and operated by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and is the flagship ABC Television network. The headquarters of the ABC TV channel and the ABC are in Ultimo, an inner-city suburb of Sydney.
ABC Television is the general name for the national television services of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). Until an organisational restructure in 2017/2018, ABC Television was also the name of a division of the ABC. The name was also used to refer to the first and for many years the only national ABC channel, before it was renamed ABC1 and then again to ABC TV.
SBS is a multicultural public TV network in Australia. Launched on 24 October 1980, it is the responsibility of SBS's television division, and is available nationally. In 2023, SBS had an 8.5% audience share, compared to 2018 when SBS had a 7.7% audience share.
This timeline of Australian television lists important station launches, programs, major television events, and technological advancements that have significantly changed the forms of broadcasting available to viewers of television in Australia. The history of television in Australia can be traced back to an announcement from the Menzies' government concerning plans for television services in Sydney and Melbourne.
ABC Radio and Regional Content, later ABC Radio, was the division of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation responsible for radio output and regional content. This was the first public radio station in Australia, which opened in Sydney at 8:00pm on 23 November 1923 under the call sign 2SB.
The Drum was an Australian nightly television current affairs and news analysis program hosted by Julia Baird, Ellen Fanning, and Dan Bourchier. At the time of the program's axing, the program aired in the primetime slot of 6:00 pm weekdays on ABC TV and was aired later on the ABC News Channel at 9:00 pm AEDT.
The history of broadcasting in Australia has been shaped for over a century by the problem of communication across long distances, coupled with a strong base in a wealthy society with a deep taste for aural communications in a silent landscape. Australia developed its own system, through its own engineers, manufacturers, retailers, newspapers, entertainment services, and news agencies. The government set up the first radio system, and business interests marginalized the hobbyists and amateurs. The Labor Party was especially interested in radio because it allowed them to bypass the newspapers, which were mostly controlled by the opposition. Both parties agreed on the need for a national system, and in 1932 set up the Australian Broadcasting Commission, as a government agency that was largely separate from political interference.
