What's New January 31, 2022

ABC News Daily podcast launches today

Today, the ABC launches a brand-new podcast, ABC News Daily, hosted by one of the ABC’s best-known journalists, Samantha Hawley.

ABC News Daily is your daily news update, taking an in depth look at one big story in under 15 minutes and published early each weekday in time for the morning commute.

This is a premium podcast built on the strength of the ABC’s journalism and exclusive reporting and will draw on the ABC’s unbeatable line-up of experienced and specialist reporters.

Daily news podcasts are an increasingly important way for Australians looking to understand the world around them, and ABC News Daily will bring the reliable journalism that has made ABC News the most trusted source of news in Australia, to this rapidly growing listening market.

Host, Samantha Hawley has been the ABC’s London bureau chief and the bureau chief in Jakarta, as well as a South East Asia correspondent in Bangkok. Samantha also spent a decade working as a political reporter in Canberra.

In today’s first episode the host, who is calling herself ‘Sam’ for the podcast format, talked with ABC Education and Parenting reporter Conor Duffy about students returning to school.

The show, which was published at 4am, took an East Coast perspective, with Duffy outlining the return to school plans in NSW and Victoria (today) and Queensland (next week). The 11 minute episode played grabs from the Qld and NSW Premiers and explored the political background behind the decisions to bring children back to school despite the Omicron Corona variant still raging in many states. The political analysis of impending elections and the power of teacher unions was insightful in explaining the balancing act that governments are undertaking in making decisions about schools in the pandemic.

The episode did not include reference to schools in NT, SA or WA, an oversight for a national podcast. Another oversight was no reference to the changed vaccination situation this year. The discussion between Hawley and Duffy referenced teacher and parent views, but did not mention the changed medical angle this year, the fact that high school students are now all vaccinated and primary school students are well on the way to at least one vaccination, making it a different situation from the past two years.

The style of the podcast is much more ABC News-like than the daily news podcast that preceded it, The Signal, which had a chattier ‘explainer’ style than this current podcast. The difference in style was reflected right from the start, where the opening words were delivered in exactly the same style as a news bulletin – ‘This is ABC News… Daily.’ The more traditional style should get traction with middle aged and older listeners, but it remains to be seen whether it will resonate with young news podcast consumers.

Listen to the first episode: