Behind the News

Overview

Behind the News is a long-running news program broadcast on Australia's ABC1 made in Adelaide and aimed at school-aged children. BtN is aimed at upper primary and lower secondary students with the goal of helping them understand current issues and events in their world. Behind the News explores major news events using the language, music and popular culture of young people. The program explains the concepts that underpin the issues and events, while also providing background information that puts current affairs into context. Behind the News also covers kids' issues often overlooked by mainstream news, and makes use of online resources including streaming video of BtN stories, study materials for teachers and additional information and activities for students. BtN explains news items in a fun, simplistic way that is easy to understand. In 2004 Behind the News was temporarily axed due to Government budget cuts but returned to air in 2005. While BtN was the first and original program of this nature, a similar program on Network Ten, ttn, debuted in the year BtN did not air. ttn itself was axed at the end of 2008. Some schools let students watch BtN on a regular basis in hope that it will give them an insight into politics, current affairs, sport and various other topics.