Australia Wide stemmed from
ABC Local Radio's Radio Pictures program, in which local radio presenters from rural
Western Australia were given video equipment and training to produce local stories. This program produced a four-part series for
ABC TV in 1998. In 2000, it was intended that the concept would be turned into a regular program, shown on ABC TV. A pilot was produced, however the series did not go ahead. Video equipment was still given to a number of additional Local Radio studios, along with training and additional staffing hours. A few more short series of "Radio Pictures" were produced, and video appeared on ABC Online. In 2003, the regular series idea was turned into the week-daily "Australia Wide", also including content from regular ABC News reports. It ran for fifteen minutes and was only available on ABC Online, produced by the ABC's New Media and Digital Services division in
Brisbane. In March 2005,
ABC2 launched, and Australia Wide became available to a wider audience. ABC ran a competition in late 2005 called "Video Lives" to find new documentary making talent. Following a restructure of the ABC in 2007, production was moved from Brisbane to
Sydney, where the program was to be produced by the corporation's
News and Current Affairs division. There have been a number of presenters over the years, including Kerrin Binnie and Emma Renwick. On 6 August 2016
Yassmin Abdel-Magied presented the show for the first time, and continued in this role until the cancellation of the show following the ABC restructure was announced in late May 2017, with the last episode to be aired on 1 July. ==References==