Frequency Variable Website abc.net.au/local/ | Format Talk | |
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Broadcast area Australia - AM/FM & Internet Owner Australian Broadcasting Corporation | ||
ABC Local Radio is a network of publicly owned radio stations in Australia, operated by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Contents
ABC Local Radio stations broadcast across the continent using terrestrial transmitters and satellites. Its programming consists of news, current affairs, talkback, entertainment, sport, music and local affairs. They are usually reckoned as the flagship ABC radio stations in their areas.
Depending on the time of day and the day of the week, programming can either be purely local (typically on weekday mornings), broadcast from the state or territory capital city ABC station, or simulcast across all ABC Local Radio services across the country (typically overnight, public holidays, in the summer months and on weekends).
History
Originally, Local Radio was known internally as ABC Radio 1 in metropolitan regions and ABC Radio 3 in regional areas. Radio 1 was a largely local format while Radio 3 was more networked and included content from the national programme, Radio 2.
In the 1980s, Radio National emerged from Radio 2 and Radio 3 dropped its Radio 2 content with Radio 1 becoming ABC Metro Radio and Radio 3 becoming ABC Regional Radio. The Regional Radio stations provided local programming in breakfast and drive but networked common content for most of their broadcasting hours. Some different, local market formats emerged, including the Darwin Metro 8DDD, FM105.7 [1] and Gold Coast Regional, ABC Coast FM (4SCR), 91.7. Up until the mid-1990s, the majority of the local radio stations identified on-air as (frequency) (callsign). In the 1990s, a different convention was used, generally as ABC Radio (region) or (region) FM.
In 2000, these two almost identical networks merged as ABC Local Radio. From this point all ABC Local Radio stations ceased to identify themselves according to their callsigns or other existing names, and instead use the format (frequency) ABC (region), or ABC (region) where there are multiple frequencies broadcasting the same service. However, as the callsigns were used continuously for up to seventy years and are much shorter than the new names, many long-term listeners still use these callsigns to refer to ABC Local Radio stations.
In January 2017, ABC Local Radio rebranded with a new logo. The new round logo reflects the dropping of the call numbers of each local radio station as part of the network's multiplatform philosophy. All stations now use the format ABC Radio with the region.
Stations
There are sixty ABC Local Radio stations, including 51 regional stations and 9 metropolitan stations. The metropolitan stations are:
The regional stations are:
The metropolitan and regional stations originate most of their own programming.
Until 2015, the regional stations usually simulcast one of the metropolitan stations when they weren't airing local programming. Usually, they simulcast their state's capital city station; an exception was 999 ABC Broken Hill, which simulcasts 891 ABC Adelaide because Broken Hill is on Central Time. In 2015, the ABC formed a Regional Division to again split its regional stations from the metropolitan counterparts. 1233 ABC Newcastle (2NC) was transferred from the metropolitan network to the new regional division and 14 of the regional network's member stations began streaming.
It was announced from 2016 that the regional Local Radio stations would broadcast live each weekday and Saturday morning in a restructure of services, as well as a local Country Hour program at midday and afternoon drive time. During the mid-afternoon and evening, the regional stations will act as satellites of the nearest metropolitan station, usually the capital city station.
Despite the loss of 100 websites from the ABC, the Regional network introduced local news websites for its 48 stations containing a mix of news and lifestyle content for regional audiences.