Prince’s death rocked the world soon after his last tour date in April 2016. But how was the world made aware of his passing?
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation — nationally known as the ABC — seamlessly delivers news daily to large audiences across many media and countless brands. But how do they do it? We embarked on a discovery journey to unveil the mysteries behind this seemingly effortless process.
In the world of news delivery, breaking news unfolds along a clear and straightforward path: an event occurs, the story breaks, live coverage takes over, and subsequent updates follow. To get a closer look at this process, we retraced the recent coverage of Prince's death, offering us a unique opportunity to immerse ourselves in his remarkable musical legacy.
Prince unexpectedly passed in the middle of the night on the back of his successful ‘Piano and a Microphone’ tour. The array of content created by the ABC to cover this event across its television, radio and online services provided extensive research material to understand the many processes and complex interactions between people and technology.
In addition, we also conducted in-depth interviews with news anchors, investigative journalists and content producers in Brisbane and Sydney, gathering valuable insights into the inner workings of this esteemed institution.
After weeks of meticulous research and piecing together the breaking news puzzle, we presented ABC’s executive leadership with a comprehensive service blueprint. This blueprint not only chronicles the ABC's journey in becoming aware of, breaking, and covering Prince's death but also acts as an operational roadmap of the ABC's editorial workflow that captures the cadence, flow and multi-directionality of breaking news cycles.
Our research provided twelve strategic and innovative opportunities for the design of new products and general improvements to the ABC’s news delivery ecosystem.
