Fed: No delay on international Anzac Day footage, ABC

AAP General News (Australia)
04-23-2008
Fed: No delay on international Anzac Day footage, ABC

By Stephanie Gardiner

SYDNEY, April 23 AAP - Footage of the Anzac Day dawn service at Gallipoli will be available
for live broadcast on all Australian television networks, after ABC Television today backed
away from its demands for delayed coverage.

The ABC, which is beaming footage of major international Anzac Day events back to Australia,
had been in discussions to provide the live footage to other networks on the basis they
delayed the broadcast.

The ABC had wanted the other networks to screen the Gallipoli dawn service on a half-hour
delay at 1pm, when its own coverage of the Sydney and Melbourne Anzac Day marches is scheduled
to end.

However, ABC Television director Kim Dalton today said the ABC would now provide live
coverage of the Gallipoli dawn service to all networks.

It would also deliver live coverage of the Villers-Bretonneux dawn service in France,
he said in a statement.

An ABC spokeswoman said other networks would not be required to delay their broadcasts
of either service.

"There was some discussion about what we would do and hence the leaked emails from
Sky," she said.

She was referring to an email to Sky News news director Ian Ferguson, quoted by News
Ltd, in which ABC's head of sport and events Iain Knight said: "I do not wish you to go
live this year. To be clear, Sky News DOES NOT HAVE PERMISSION to broadcast the Gallipoli
dawn service in 2008 before 1300 AEST.

"Please respond indicating that you accept this and will comply or I will be forced
to reconsider the level of access granted to Sky to all of the Anzac Day broadcasts."

In the past, the live feed from Gallipoli had been delayed until the end of the broadcast
of the Sydney and Melbourne marches, in an agreement with the RSL.

"We have always done it this way because people want to see the marches, that's what
is important, they want the local marches," the ABC spokeswoman told AAP.

"It's only the growth of Gallipoli that the focus has changed a bit to that."

This year's Gallipoli service will be screened live on ABC2, while ABC1 will switch
to the footage from Anzac Cove after the Sydney and Melbourne marches end.

RSL national president Bill Crews said the long-standing agreement was formed so the
city marches could be televised in their entirety.

The networks needed to cooperate to satisfy audiences interested in different services
around Australia and abroad, he said.

"It might be a good opportunity for them (the networks) to work cooperatively so that
everybody in Australia who can't physically attend a venue for Anzac Day can at least
view what they're interested in through television."

Ahead of Anzac Day on Friday, 3,000 south-east Queensland school children gathered
for a service in Brisbane today.

Queensland Governor Quentin Bryce told the children to let the Anzac legend be an example
for their lives.

"My young friends, take time to listen to the silence, to let it tell you more about
the thousands of men and women who risked their lives to teach you more about yourselves,"

Ms Bryce said.

AAP sg/hn/sp/wf/sp

KEYWORD: ANZAC NIGHTLEAD

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