ABC Television in Western Australia comprises national and local programming on the

ABC television network The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) is an American commercial broadcast television network. It is the flagship property of the ABC Entertainment Group division of The Walt Disney Company. The network is headquartered in Burbank, Califor ...

in the Australian state of

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to t ...

, on a number of channels under the ABC

call sign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally ass ...

. There is some local programming from the

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

studio. ABW was the historic name of the

Australian Broadcasting Corporation The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is the national broadcaster of Australia. It is principally funded by direct grants from the Australian Government and is administered by a government-appointed board. The ABC is a publicly-owne ...

's television station in Perth, with the "W" standing for the name of the state.

History

The station began broadcasting on 7 May 1960 from studios on

Adelaide Terrace Adelaide Terrace is a major arterial road through the central business district of Perth, Western Australia. It runs parallel to the Swan River, linking St Georges Terrace with The Causeway. Route description Adelaide Terrace's eastern end is ...

in downtown Perth and its transmitter at

Bickley Bickley is a district and a local government electoral ward in South East London, within the London Borough of Bromley. It is located 10.4 miles (16.7 km) south east of Charing Cross, bordering Elmstead to the north, Chislehurst to the no ...

. The station was relayed throughout the state by a number of transmitters, and in the 2000s on the

Optus Aurora Optus Aurora was a free-to-view satellite television platform in Australia, which aimed at providing television and radio services to remote and black spot areas using the Optus C1 and B3 satellites. The service was available in all areas, usin ...

free-to-view satellite television platform, replaced by Viewer Access Satellite Television (VAST) in 2010. ABW commenced

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

transmission in January 2001, broadcasting on VHF Channel 12 while maintaining

analogue television Analog television is the original television technology that uses analog signals to transmit video and audio. In an analog television broadcast, the brightness, colors and sound are represented by amplitude, phase and frequency of an analog s ...

transmission on VHF Channel 2. In 2005 the station moved to a new digital broadcast centre in East Perth. In February 2013 ABC Perth was the first TV station in Western Australia to start producing a national news bulletin at 5.30pm. The analogue signal for ABW was shut off on 16 April 2013. The Western Australian edition of '' 7.30'' was presented by Andrew O'Connor each Friday night but was cancelled in 2014 to broadcast a national edition only, in a round of severe cuts to the ABC. The channel used to carry live coverage of

West Australian Football League The West Australian Football League (WAFL) is an Australian rules football league based in Perth, Western Australia. The league currently consists of ten teams, which play each other in a 20-round season usually lasting from March to September ...

matches every Saturday afternoon throughout the season until 2014.

ABC Television in WA today

there is a large number of transmitters broadcasting a number of ABC channels. CC-BY icon

Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
licence.

Programming

ABC Perth - News studio (2) (E37@OpenHousePerth2014)

ABC Perth - Satellite Link Truck (E37@OpenHousePerth2014)

ABC News ABC News is the news division of the American broadcast network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast '' ABC World News Tonight with David Muir''; other programs include morning news-talk show '' Good Morning America'', '' ...

Western Australia'' is presented by Pamela Medlen Monday-Thursday, Charlotte Hamlyn Friday-Sunday, and Tyne Logan for weather on weeknights. Tom Wildie presents local sport bulletins on weekends. The weeknight bulletins also incorporates a national finance segment presented by

Alan Kohler Alan Robert Kohler (born 26 April 1952) is an Australian financial journalist and newspaper editor. He currently writes for his own online financial publication, ''The Constant Investor''. Career In 1969, Kohler began as a cadet on ''The Aust ...

in Melbourne. Due to different time zones in Australia, the 5:30 news bulletin goes live to air on the east coast at 5.30pm and a separate local edition is produced for the west coast. Perth also receives a local version of ''ABC News at Noon'' produced from the ABC's

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mounta ...

studios, which is also simulcast live nationally on the ABC News channel.

Presenters

On 6 April 2018, weeknight weather presenter Rebecca Dollery stepped down from the ABC due to family reasons. From 9 April, Dollery was replaced by Irena Ceranic as weather presenter. In January 2021, Tyne Logan took over from Ceranic as weather presenter on weeknights. In late June 2018 Tom Wildie replaced Trevor Jenkins as the weekend sport presenter. James McHale formerly presented the news on weekdays, until 11 September 2020. Briana Shepherd formerly presented the news on weekends, between August 2021 and June 2022, while Charlotte Hamlyn is on maternity leave.

Relay stations

The following stations relayed ABW throughout Western Australia:

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abw (Tv Station) Television stations in Perth, Western Australia Television channels and stations established in 1960 Australian Broadcasting Corporation television stations