ABC Plans Digital Democratic, GOP Convention Coverage

[Gregg Lengling]

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - ABC News will test the popularity of a 24-hour news channel for digital broadcast with full-day coverage of the Republican and Democratic national political conventions, the head of ABC's news division said on Monday.
The broadcaster, a unit of the Walt Disney Co., and its affiliates are looking for ways to use digital channels allotted to local television stations as part of the move from analog to digital broadcasting. For each analog channel, stations have received room for many digital ones.

ABC News anchor Peter Jennings will cover the conventions. ABC's prime time news program will air an hour per night of coverage, and the rest of the convention will be aired on the digital signal and on ABC News Live, the 24-hour high-speed Web channel of ABCNews.com.

"We've been talking with the affiliates for over a year of doing a digital news service," David Westin told reporters at a conference for television critics.

The 24-hour news coverage, which would begin on July 26 at the kickoff of the Democratic convention and continue until election night, could become a launch pad for the digital service, he said, although no plan has been agreed upon yet.

It is not clear how big the audience for the digital programs will be, however.

About 80 percent of the country is covered by digital signals, but few people have digital receivers. Therefore many viewers will get access to the digital broadcast channel only if cable providers have agreed to carry the new channels.

ABC lacks a sister cable news channel but has been aggressive in trying new technology formats, such as its subscription Internet news channel. NBC, for example, will carry one hour per night of convention coverage in prime time, like ABC, and extra extended coverage on cable channel MSNBC.

The Democratic convention in Boston is July 26 - July 29 and the Republican convention in New York is Aug. 30 - Sept. 2.

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