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Just a brief follow-up after my earlier post concerning ABC television’s use of the ABC Kids channel to broadcast adult content: I received the following response from the ABC Ombudsman Office, and I quote,

“ABC Kids programs are broadcast on the ABC Kids channel daily from 5 a.m. to 7.30 p.m. At promptly [at] 7.30 p.m. every night ABC Kids concludes, marked by an ABC Kids station identification wishing viewers goodnight, and the ABC is reliant on parents and guardians supervising the viewing of children under their care.

From 7.30 p.m., the channel becomes ABC TV Plus, which targets adult viewers. The change to ABC TV Plus is signposted to ensure viewers know that children’s programming has concluded for the day.”

I watched the changeover from ABC Kids to ABC TV Plus one night at 7.30 p.m. The ABC Kids station’s ‘goodnight’ message was only a visual that lasted for a maximum of 10 seconds, if that! Parents would have to have been watching right at that moment (or second) to have noticed the change.

From 7.30 p.m. to 5 a.m. the next morning, the station’s channel identifier still remained as ABC Kids/ABC Plus.

Take Responsibility

A reader of my last post made the following observation,

“Curious the ABC Kids channel 22 is used rather than any other of their multiple channels which play repeats of the others.” CS.

It’s concerning that a public broadcaster like the ABC can so readily dismiss their responsibility to protect children from adult content. They need to ensure that station IDs actually mean what they say, instead of putting the sole onus on parents to work out if a channel identified as for children actually means that or not.

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Photo by Vika Glitter.