ABC Digital Network Division, formerly ABC Innovation, was a division of the

Australian Broadcasting Corporation The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is Australia’s principal public service broadcaster. It is funded primarily by grants from the federal government and is administered by a government-appointed board of directors. The ABC is ...

. ABC Innovation was formed in early 2007 to develop digital products and services across the ABC, taking over many of the services previously managed by the New Media and Digital Services division, including

ABC Online The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is Australia’s principal Public broadcasting, public service broadcaster. It is funded primarily by grants from the Australian Government, federal government and is administered by a government ...

. In 2015, ABC Innovation was replaced by the ABC Digital Network Division, but by 2017 the Digital Network fell under the Chief Technology Officer, and the name is no longer in existence.

History

The ABC established its original Multimedia Unit in 1995, to manage the corporation's website (launched in August that year). Although the unit at first relied upon funding allocation to the corporation's

television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

and

radio Radio is the technology of communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 3 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connec ...

operations, in subsequent budgets it began to receive its own. The ABC provided live, online election coverage for the first time in 1996, although it was not until 1997 that limited news content was provided. ABC Multimedia was renamed ABC New Media and Digital Services in 2000, at the same time becoming an "output division" similar to television or radio. The department continued to perform the same functions, in addition to taking control of the ABC's first

digital television Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using Digital signal, digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an ...

channels -

Fly TV ABC Kids is the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's part-time channel, broadcasting shows between the hours of 4am and 7:30pm for children 6 years old and younger, including an upper preschool audience. It shares the same bandwidth as ABC Fam ...

and ABC Kids.

Broadband In telecommunications, broadband or high speed is the wide-bandwidth (signal processing), bandwidth data transmission that exploits signals at a wide spread of frequencies or several different simultaneous frequencies, and is used in fast Inter ...

news services were introduced in 2001. The formation of ABC Innovation was announced in February 2007. In March 2007, ABC Innovation led the corporation's establishment of an "ABC Island" in virtual world

Second Life ''Second Life'' is a multiplayer virtual world that allows people to create an Avatar (computing), avatar for themselves and then interact with other users and user-created content within a multi-user online environment. Developed for person ...

, launched with a live simulcast of a ''

Four Corners Four Corners is a region of the Southwestern United States consisting of the southwestern corner of Colorado, southeastern corner of Utah, northeastern corner of Arizona, and northwestern corner of New Mexico. Most of the Four Corners regio ...

'' program on virtual worlds titled "You Only Live Twice". The division won a Content+Technology, Content+Technology (C+T) Award in the Rich Media category on 18 July 2007, for its work in developing ABC Island. In September 2007, ABC Innovation created a mobile off-deck

portal Portal may refer to: Arts and entertainment Gaming * ''Portal'' (series), a series of video games developed by Valve ** ''Portal'' (video game), a 2007 video game, the first in the series ** '' Portal 2'', the 2011 sequel ** '' Portal Stori ...

providing coverage of the

Australian Federal Election Elections in Australia take place periodically to elect the legislature of the Commonwealth of Australia, as well as for each Australian state and territory and for local government councils. Elections in all jurisdictions follow similar princ ...

which could be downloaded to

mobile devices A mobile device or handheld device is a computer small enough to hold and operate in hand. Mobile devices are typically battery-powered and possess a flat-panel display and one or more built-in input devices, such as a touchscreen or keypad. Mod ...

. ABC NOW, a desktop

application Application may refer to: Mathematics and computing * Application software, computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks ** Application layer, an abstraction layer that specifies protocols and interface methods used in a ...

combining the

ABC television ABC Television most commonly refers to: *ABC Television Network of the American Broadcasting Company, United States, or *ABC Television (Australian TV network), a division of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Australia ABC Television or ABC ...

, radio and

news News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different Media (communication), media: word of mouth, printing, Mail, postal systems, broadcasting, Telecommunications, electronic communication, or through the te ...

RSS feed RSS ( RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. Subscribing to RSS feeds can allow a user to keep track of many d ...

s, was released on 3 December 2007. In March 2012, Angela Clark was appointed head of the ABC Innovation unit. In 2015, the ABC Managing Director Mark Scott announced that the Innovation Division would be replaced with an ABC Digital Network Division, with the aim of prioritising the ABC's online and mobile initiatives. Clark remained head of the Division until the end of financial year 2015/6, but by 2017 she was gone, and the Digital Network fell into the Technology division under the Chief Technology Officer. In May 2017, Helen Clifton was appointed to the new role of Chief Digital and Information Officer, which continues .

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abc Innovation Australian Broadcasting Corporation divisions 1995 establishments in Australia 2007 establishments in Australia 2017 disestablishments in Australia