is an
Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio service devoted to delivering live and 24-hour news updates and information. The service is available on a number of broadcasts, including AM/FM radio.
Originally called the ''
Parliamentary And News Network '' (PNN), the AM/FM radio network is
Charter ed to broadcast live the proceedings of
Parliament , either the House of Representatives or the Senate, as specified by the standing orders. Also broadcast, at the end of each day's sitting, is a recording of Question Time for the chamber that was not broadcast live that day. These restrictions do not apply to the other broadcasts of Newsradio, or to new rural and regional transmitters in 2006 (see below).
Parliamentary broadcasting was commenced by
Ben Chifley 's government in the late
1940s . This received its own frequencies in the 1980s as PNN. The PNN/ABC NewsRadio service was introduced in August,
1994 to utilise the Parliamentary broadcasting frequencies which were not being used when Parliament was not in session.
ABC NewsRadio has a 24-hour news format, including extensive finance, science and IT reports, as well as extended reports from the ABC's local and international news sources. NewsRadio also rebroadcasts international programming from the
BBC ,
DW-Radio ,
Radio Netherlands and ''
All Things Considered '' from
NPR . On
AM and
FM radio, NewsRadio also broadcasts
Australian Football League matches on weekends in
New South Wales and
Queensland , where the
National Rugby League is the more popular football competition and thus is broadcast on
ABC Local Radio services in those two states.
ABC NewsRadio
Callsign s for stations on the
AM radio band are always ''xPB'', where ''x'' is the number denoting the particular
State Or Territory and ''PB'' stands for ''Parliamentary Broadcasting''. ABC NewsRadio stations on the
FM radio band use callsigns of the format ''xPNN''.
ABC NewsRadio also uses resources from around the world such as news bulletins and programs from the BBC.
From
September 2001 ,
Live Audio Streaming of the 24-hour news format was extended so that when Parliament is in session, listeners who have
Internet access may still receive the NewsRadio service even when the NewsRadio network is broadcasting Parliamentary proceedings over the air. From
2004 , this was extended to digital satellite.
In
2005 it was announced that up to seventy new NewsRadio stations would be rolled out across rural and regional areas of Australia. This roll out is scheduled to commence in
2006 and is expected to take three years. This expansion of ABC NewsRadio services will raise the percentage of the Australian population who can receive the NewsRadio signal from 78% to an expected 95%.
''The following carry parliamentary services, including
Question Time , when parliament is in session.''
''
Australian Football League broadcasts may also interrupt news coverage.''
''The following carry 24-hour news coverage, without parliamentary or sport interruption.''
Podcasts of regularly recorded segments are also available at
NewsRadio Podcasts .
