Federal election 2016: Sky has front-running over ABC News 24

The rise of 24-hour television news is a boon for news and politics junkies, particularly at election time. So how are ABC News 24 and Sky News going this campaign?

Sky News has thrown almost its entire schedule from early morning until 10pm at the poll and CEO Angelos Frangopoulos says the decision has paid off with audience growth since early May.

“We have been election-ready for a long time and with 17 days to go we see this as the new normal,” he said last week. “We started with a clear plan to play a proactive role in getting the public policy debate going. We want to break free of spin doctors and provide unique analysis. ABC 24 are more reporting the events in the campaign than providing a forum for analysis and debate in the way we do.”

Sky News, a joint venture between the Seven and Nine networks and Europe’s Sky (itself 39.1 per cent owned by Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox), has launched several new programs to coincide with the poll. Andrew Bolt’s Bolt Report has moved from Ten to the Monday to Friday 7pm slot, ABC RNDrive host Patricia Karvelas has launched a new Sunday 7pm program and this paper’s Chris Kenny is hosting a third Viewpoint at 8pm on Mondays, joining his Friday and Sunday programs.

Frangopoulos, who says he sometimes needs to pinch himself when he thinks about the “dream team” the network now broadcasts, says the arrival of Bolt has given the network a strong point of difference from the ABC during its nightly 7pm bulletins and 7.30. Leading the wider daily Sky News political coverage is David Speers with PM Agenda. Chief political reporter Kieran Gilbert hosts AM Agenda and Peter Van Onselen hosts PVO Newsday after lunch.

Paul Murray’s PM Live at 9pm is influential among politicians and has benefited from the hiring of former Tony Abbott chief of staff Peta Credlin. Frangopoulos has also stepped up the presence of political reporter Laura Jayes, former NSW premier Kristine Keneally and former federal Labor leader Mark Latham, who appears with Alan Jones on Tuesday at 8pm, and as a regular guest on Bolt and PM Live. Also given more time and space are Peter Beattie and Peter Reith with their own program at 8pm on Wednesday, plus Michael Kroger, Stephen Conroy, Ross Cameron, Janine Perrett and former chief of staff to Julia Gillard, Nicholas Reece.

The ABC, somewhat unusually in my view for a national public broadcaster, has decided not to change its schedule on ABC News 24 for the poll and is feeding its ­national political breaking news coverage into regular daily programming as its does not have dedicated political reporters. New ABC director of news, Gaven Morris, who succeeded Kate Torney last year, believes the public is not enlivened by the campaign. His focus has been on ensuring ­reporters file across platforms. Morris says ABC News 24, established under former managing director Mark Scott in 2010, has lifted its weekly audience to 4 million.

No additional resources have been allocated to the election but Morris is pleased the old silos within the editorial culture are being broken down. “We no longer have people from different news departments all covering the one election event. We send one team out on the bus now and that team has to cover for all our outlets.” Gone are the days when people in the ABC national bureau at Parliament House would refuse to file for the wider news and current affairs department. “Back in the 90s, the 7.30 team would not talk to the 7pm news team and they would not talk to the radio team,” he said.

Frangopoulos recalls the early days at Sky News 16 years ago when the network had no Can­berra bureau. He says ABC News 24 “is not into the campaign the way we are” but says the audiences are different. Morris says he loves the Sky News coverage which “brings lots of verve and vigour” to the campaign.

The left Twitteratti often criticises Sky News for its conservative bias but in truth it employs many progressive commentators and the main news programs before 7pm are straight and interviews are carefully balanced. The nightly pro­grams take a strong commentary position, often on the Right, but within them many progressive voices feature strongly. ABC News 24 similarly uses The Drum to bring in voices from the Right of politics and business, ­although it prefers small-l liberals over genuine conservatives.

Some observers of the ABC have noted the nightly 7pm TV bulletin has lately run its election wrap of the day after 7.10pm. Morris is comfortablewith judgments lacing the election wrap each night on merit. “There has been a lot of news around with the storms and Or­lando ... we judge the political bulletin on its merits each day,” he says. Lateline (at 9.30 on News 24) has covered noticeably less politics than during previous elections, but Leigh Sales has carried some strong interviews for ABC’s 7.30, and the program’s political editor, Sabra Lane, has found her feet over the past month. ABC local radio has performed almost as well as it did in the days when one of the country’s best television journalists, Chris Uhlmann, hosted AM. ABC 24 has benefited from the more regular hosting of Eleanor Hall, who brings a less wide-eyed, more pragmatic feel to its only real opinion program, The Drum (at 5.30 on ABC 1).

Traditionally, Labor MPs say they prefer to watch and appear on the ABC while conservatives opt for Sky News, with its seat of the pants, no-frills approach to live television. Stories abound of senior ministers having to apply their own makeup at Sky News but having several people to do it for them for ABC appearances. That is changing. Increasingly, according to Morris, the national broadcaster is joining an editorial world in which all journalists are asked to do much more with less.

While I believe the wider ABC election coverage, and News 24’s specifically, is better than that of the commercial networks it really would need to be as a publicly subsidised broadcaster. What could be more critical to its core role than a federal election? And if its news judgments are made with the same eye to audience ratings as Nine’s or Seven’s why have it?

This is a no-win argument for a former Murdoch editor, but I am a big consumer of ABC news on all platforms and, like some experienced old hands inside the corporation, I think if there is a problem with ABC News’ political coverage, it is not about bias but structure. No individual can do what Frangopoulos does at Sky News or the editor of this paper does every night: rule on coverage and be responsible for decisions. There are a thousand points of light at the corporation, usually individual executive producers, but at Sky News the political editors and program hosts dominate their programming in a way they do not at the ABC, who answer directly to Frangopoulos. Morris is tough and smart with the experience to know how to improve his editorial product. At ABC News 24 the aim was to challenge Sky News. It has a way to go.