Talk:ABC News (United States)

Requested move 18 June 2024

Requested move 1 August 2024

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Consensus to support move. Strong and clear consensus to support prior move request and DAB both pages, owing to no clear WP:PTOPIC. This also keeps consistency between pages. So, ABC News → ABC News (United States), and ABC News (disambiguation) → ABC News. As move already performed, no further action necessary. (non-admin closure) Lewisguile (talk) 13:04, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

---

ABC News (United States) → ABC News –

• ABC News → ABC News (United States)
• ABC News (disambiguation) → ABC News

– Australia's ABC News is its national broadcaster and is its most widely watched newscast. The Australian broadcaster reaches 8 digit levels of people on a weekly basis, while the U.S. company averages around 7 million on nightly newscasts. And, in absolute terms, Australia's ABC is quite a major news organization. I don't think the U.S. subsidiary of Disney is more of a WP:PTOPIC here, so I propose moving this to the proposed target and moving ABC News (disambiguation) to take over this page's title. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 20:57, 18 June 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. JuniperChill (talk) 20:32, 25 June 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. —S Marshall T/C 15:38, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Note: The move as originally proposed has already been executed, which is causing some confusion. The request has been re-opened after a move review, but the move hasn't been undone. Therefore, to keep it consistent with !votes done previous to the move, editors who think the US network is the primary topic for "ABC News" should Oppose the move and editors who think there is no primary topic should Support the move. Vpab15 (talk) 11:08, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Television/Television stations task force, WikiProject Disney, WikiProject Media, WikiProject United States, WikiProject Television/American television task force, WikiProject Companies, WikiProject Television, and WikiProject Journalism have been notified of this discussion. Векочел (talk) 11:44, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. This has gone through many requested moves and all of them were to keep the status quo. Georgia guy (talk) 21:07, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

  The last discussion was 2017, and the media market has changed quite a bit since then—particularly so in television. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 22:06, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose While ABC News owned by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) had considerable more audiences in absolute terms than the U.S. counterpart with similar name, we don't considered that, because without specify the country that originated when we searched on internet, "ABC News" is overhelmingly referred to the American one instead of Australian, even when we included the digital and social media platforms. So WP:PRIMARYTOPIC applies here (see [discussion in 2017]). ABC News owned by ABC Australia may be the primary topic in its home country, but not elsewhere. 103.111.100.82 (talk) 00:14, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
• Support per nom. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:59, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
• Support: oppose arguments have a very US-centric worldview. YorkshireExpat (talk) 21:27, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

  Let me quote WP:PRIMARYTOPIC.

  Perhaps the most commonly rejected criterion is that the primary topic should only belong to what "first comes to mind". This argument is inevitably tainted by factors such as one's location, ideology, ethnicity, and other personal biases, but we are trying to build an encyclopedia that is untainted by systemic bias. Therefore, the primary topic is determined without regard to certain attributes, such as national origin, of the articles in question.

  Emphasis mine. Ergzay (talk) 20:31, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

  Yes, this is an argument for double dab, surely, and not being US-centric?? YorkshireExpat (talk) 17:53, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

• Support. Anecdotally, most Australians are unfamiliar with the American ABC, and might be surprised to find out it's not the PTOPIC just because it isn't American. I do not believe either news organization has a reputation that exceeds their domestic audiences. AVNOJ1989 (talk) 03:48, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

  By that argument the island of Java is unknown to most Americans and when they hear it their first thoughts are either going to be Java on one's computer or the Java they drink, but Java still links to the island of Java. Just most of an entire country's population is going to be surprised does not factor into whether it is the primary topic. Have a look at WP:BUTIKNOWABOUTIT. Ergzay (talk) 20:37, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

• Support as above. Arbitrarily0 ^(talk) 22:06, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
• Support per WP:PT1, there is no primary topic. The US news organisation doesn't appear to have usage more than all other topics combined, but would be good to get clear search data comparison presented, Tom B (talk) 19:20, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose the original move and Support moving ABC News (United States) back to ABC News. Comparing the Austrialia weekly numbers that include website/app users with the US nightly TV viewership is meaningless. If you look at Red-tailed hawk's links, all of ABC News Australia's TV broadcasts combined only get ~3,000,000 weekly viewers (the most-viewed episode of their most-viewed show only got 1.6 million viewers), compared to ABC News US's single "World News Tonight" broadcasts alone getting ~7,000,000 nightly viewers. If you want something to compare with the "8-digit levels of people" reached in Australia, per https://www.disneyadvertising.com/our-brands/abc-news/, the American ABC News reaches 167,000,000 people per month. The fact that one is owned by Disney and the other is owned by a publicly owned body is irrelevant and sounds like WP:IDONTLIKEIT. --Ahecht (TALK
  PAGE) 19:43, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

  Pinging those that participated in the move review that have not yet participated here: @Adumbrativus, Barkeep49, BD2412, Berchanhimez, BilledMammal, CapnZapp, Cavarrone, CFA, Drmies, Einsof, Ergzay, Extraordinary Writ, GTrang, Hemmers, Jessintime, LilianaUwU, Mclay1, ModernDayTrilobite, MrSchimpf, Netoholic, Noren, Paine Ellsworth, PARAKANYAA, Pppery, Red Slash, Robertsky, S Marshall, Sariel Xilo, SchroCat, SilkTork, SmokeyJoe, SnowFire, Soafy234, SounderBruce, SportingFlyer, Srnec, StAnselm, Star Mississippi, TarnishedPath, ToadetteEdit, Tpbradbury, Vpab15, Walsh90210, and Οἶδα: --Ahecht (TALK
  PAGE) 19:49, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Support. Given one is more nationally prominent where it broadcasts and the other is not, but has a larger audience, I feel that is a good rationale for having neither be the primary topic, instead of raw numbers which are crude. PARAKANYAA (talk) 19:51, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

• Support. Are we suddenly pretending that Albania and Spain do not exist? There are more "ABC News" topics than just the United States and Australia. There is a clear absence of a primary topic across the entire set of possible worldwide meanings. BD2412 T 19:59, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose Ahecht's analysis above of viewership indicates that the US based ABC News is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. (responding after being pinged) Sariel Xilo (talk) 19:59, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

• Support, per above. There is no primary topic. Both news channels are quite prominent in their corresponding countries. Vpab15 (talk) 19:59, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose (aka move ABC News (United States) back). The American news company is clearly the primary topic by any reasonable measure. For example, look at the page views since the move in question was made [1]. ~~ Jessintime (talk) 20:11, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose As was previously discussed, there was vastly more page views to the United States page than there was to the Australia one. That makes it WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. That there are other ABC News elsewhere in the world than these two further is not relevant because those have even smaller amounts of traffic. Ergzay (talk) 20:24, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

  That isn’t entirely correct, and isn’t the full story in any case, as the Australian ABC News isn’t the only other ABC News. Reviewing all such ABC’s at the MR, we found that this ABC News only receives 52% of the page views (note that this analysis was done when ABC News was a redirect here, meaning views for this ABC News were properly counted. BilledMammal (talk) 21:57, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

• Comment: the strong arguments above indicate there is no primary topic. But I have no idea if that is "support" or "oppose" since this RM seems horribly messed up. StAnselm (talk) 21:14, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

  • Support means that the article about the US broadcaster would be at ABC News (United States) and ABC News would be a disambiguation page. Oppose means that the article about the US broadcaster would be at ABC News and ABC News (disambiguation) would be a disambiguation page.

  --Ahecht (TALK
  PAGE) 21:30, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

  No, the new relisted RM is "ABC News (United States) → ABC News". StAnselm (talk) 21:52, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

  @S Marshall Can you clarify? --Ahecht (TALK
  PAGE) 01:19, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

  I think that is for a technical reason. With the pages currently staying put, RMCD bot at WP:RM would throw a fit with the original lines and put the discussion in the "Malformed requests" section. (Unfortunately, RMCD bot is already grumpy with how this is listed; currently this discussion is listed in the backlog portion as the last relist RMCD bot can see is the June 25 one.) --Super Goku V (talk) 06:25, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

  RMCD bot is now happy. --Super Goku V (talk) 07:44, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

• I also don't understand what's what here. There are three proposals, but "ABC News (United States) → ABC News" and "ABC News → ABC News (United States)" are, eh, remarkably similar, and "ABC News (disambiguation) → ABC News" seems to have happened already. So I have no idea if I'm opposing or supporting, but I have an opinion.
  Here is what I think is right: there is no PRIMARY topic, and all the numbers we throw at the one or the other are kind of meaningless, since it's all in the millions, and I'm not even sure what the sources are for them. So, ABC News should be the dab page, and this meaningless fight over whether Australia has the biggest dick or the US, whether a Disney subsidiary is less important than a news organization, who cares: these are not good arguments, and simpler is better, with the various ABCs having a country behind them to identify them. Drmies (talk) 21:59, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

  The ABC News (United States) → ABC News proposal seems to have been added in this edit, which is confusing this whole mess, but appears to have been a good faith effort to relist the discussion. It also changed the date of the requested move from 18 June 2024 to 1 August 2024. In any case, for the sake of the next closer: the "original" move proposed here was:

  1. ABC News → ABC News (United States)
  2. ABC News (disambiguation) → ABC News

  I stand behind my original move proposal. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 10:10, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

• I'm confused by the formatting of the requested move, but I support disambiguating both countries' ABC News, which appears to be the current state of the pages. There is no primary topic. The divide in these discussions and the debate over which is more popular is proof of that. MClay1 (talk) 02:39, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
• This, as others have noted is quite confusing. I don't know whether to vote oppose that I oppose the move back or support as in I supported the original move. @S Marshall, It would have been a lot simpler to start a new RM and ping all participants. However per BilledMammal and Drmies I support the original move as I think they've made a good case that there is no WP:PTOPIC, especial given that when all ABC News from every country is considered the United States one received 52% of page views. Looking at just the Australian and the United States entities I don't think it makes much sense to differentiate when the audience numbers for both are in the millions per week. TarnishedPath^talk 03:19, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
• Support move as there are two ABC Newses and there is no primary topic between them. Toadette^Edit! 06:02, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Journalism, WikiProject Television/Television stations task force, WikiProject Media, and WikiProject Television have been notified of this discussion. TarnishedPath^talk 07:51, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Pinging those that participated in the original discussion: @Red-tailed hawk, Georgia guy, Necrothesp, YorkshireExpat, AVNOJ1989, and Arbitrarily0: --Super Goku V (talk) 06:09, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

• Still confused by the structure, but I support the current position as at this timestamp: ABC News as the disambiguation page, with ABC News (Australia) and ABC News (United States) as to two article titles. If the closer is in any doubt as to my meaning, please ping. - SchroCat (talk) 07:46, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
• Disambiguate both - I don't believe there is any lasting value in either being a primary topic. Disambiguating both in the long term aids with overall clarity and avoids inaccurate wikilinks. That said, I dislike the current country disambiguation terms. These do not fall under WP:NCTV - the articles are about news divisions, not programs, and those divisions produce multiple forms of media. These more properly should be disambiguated by using the names of their parent corporations - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) and ABC News (American Broadcasting Company). Such disambiguation isn't explicit in WP:NCCORP, but probably should be. -- Netoholic @ 08:22, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
• Disambiguate both - ABC News is a moderately generic title. It is entirely understandable why ABC News was created pointing to the US entity given WIkipedia's early US-centric bias. Per WP:GLOBALISE, such decisions stand scrutiny and reassessment. Moreover, as new articles are created, we need to critically reassess compliance with WP:CRITERIA. In this case there are clearly enough other notable entities named ABC News (incl Spain & Albania) that "ABC News" fails WP:CRITERIA on Precision for a significant portion of global users, and it's time to disambiguate them. Anal-retentive analysis of channel viewership figures is irrelevant. WP is an encyclopaedia. Each subject gets one article. We need to make sure people can find what they're looking for and where there are a significant number of conflicting article titles then the best thing is usually to disambiguate rather than bouncing everyone through the US entity and then directing them back out via hatnotes. Hemmers (talk) 08:37, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
• There is no primary topic. As of right now ABC News is a disambiguation page, and I'd like it to stay that way. Asking Wikipedia to choose either to offend the US readers (who might not even have heard of the Australian news network) or offend the Australian readers (for whom ABC News (Australia) is the natural destination when searching for ABC News) is a fool's errand. Several people have made an effort to provide statistics arguing for either side; all all of them tell me is there is no clear primary topic. I would especially ask everybody to place very little weight on arguments from seven years ago. (Full disclosure: Here because of Ahecht's ping) CapnZapp (talk) 13:40, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
• Support I'm not convinced ABC News Australia isn't the primary topic. Over half of Australians use the website or app [2] and when you say ABC News to me it's the Australian version, so going to an article on a American news site would be a surprise. It's the single most important news provider in Australia, and ABC News United States isn't. That being said the American news is popular as well so there's really no primary topic here. SportingFlyer T·C 16:29, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
• Disambiguate both – per the above. ABC News just isn't well known outside of the United States. The project benefits from being conscious of and working to counter systemic bias. 122141510 (talk) 16:46, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
• Keep ABC News as a disambiguation page: the arguments that either topic is primary in the global context do not seem compelling. 100.36.106.199 (talk) 18:21, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
• Dab 'em both, or IOW, keep things as they are in the present moment, both US and Australia disambiguated, no primary topic, and the dab page at the base name. It does appear to be biased to hold either ABC above the other, doesn't it? (rhetorical) P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 18:36, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
• Disambiguate both. It is obvious that significant numbers of readers either from the US or Australia naturally associate the term "ABC News" with their respective countries' news organizations. That calls for disambiguation. I don't find the raw numerical arguments to be an overriding concern in that regard. Einsof (talk) 23:55, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
• Disambiguate both and can we have a moratorium on reconsidering this for, I dunno, a couple of years? One has to guess that the US show has far more viewership, but counting eyeballs isn't the way to go here; neutrality is. Mangoe (talk) 01:21, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

  Based on the logs I added last month, the last RM was in 2017. A moratorium might not be effective then, unless it is for a decade. --Super Goku V (talk) 06:00, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

• Comment I was one that participated with the original move request on 18 June. However, in regard to this discussion (now relist), i would like to see a nutshell or FAQ that should emphasize, how does ABC News mean in the Australia, how does it mean in the US. Additionally, if ABC News is kept as disambiguation page, we should explained why ABC News (United States) is not primary topic, vice versa. 103.111.100.82 (talk) 06:53, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
• Disambiguate, treat neither as primary topic. These are both massive national news outlets. Looking at page views alone, the American org (this is the past year, so was at ABC News prior to July) receives 4-5x the page view count regularly. However, both are receiving thousands of pageviews a month (as are some of the smaller news organizations listed in disambiguation, like ABC (newspaper)). I find Hemmers' argument towards precision compelling. Dylnuge ^{(Talk • Edits)} 15:08, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
• Disambiguate both, per other comments. Neither are the primary topic and both aren't extremely well-known outside their home countries. Loytra (talk) 05:49, 4 August 2024 (UTC)
• Disambiguate both as neither subject meets WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Graham (talk) 04:27, 6 August 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose it's clear that the American entity is overwhelmingly the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC; and the initial move should never have been closed as such given the long history of opposition or no-consensus results combined with the extremely weak arguments for moving. ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 18:03, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose per Ahecht and SWATjester. —Locke Cole • t • c 04:04, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

How has this been decided??

This page got many requested moves in its early history, and they all got the consensus to keep the article at ABC News. But now it got one that allowed it to be moved. How did it change?? Does it have anything to do with the popularity of Australian Wikipedians?? (For anyone who answers this question please study this talk page's whole history.) Georgia guy (talk) 00:23, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

There actually seems to be opposition post-move over the consensus. See User talk:BilledMammal#ABC News move. A move review has also been started at Wikipedia:Move review/Log/2024 July#ABC_News_(United_States). Limmidy (talk) 00:57, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Just found this via @BilledMammal doing mass edits all over wikipedia re-pointing links. I added my comment to the move review. Truly a wild change without much consensus. Ergzay (talk) 06:27, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

It may be best for links to be disambiguated (with piping) even if the article title is not. This makes it clear which article is intended to be referenced and provides future-proofing in case of eventual disambiguation. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 21:37, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

I think that's a good idea in general. Future-proofing seems sensible, even if there's a preference to avoid piping otherwise. Lewisguile (talk) 18:54, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

For those wondering, here's the last several moves over several years with almost universal opposition for the moves. Talk:ABC News (United States)/Archive 2 Ergzay (talk) 06:33, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Expanded explanation for RM closure

As it seems my comments in the RM closure may have been too succinct (an irony for me, as I am usually told I am too comprehensive), I am copying here a more detailed response I added to my talk page first (slightly tweaked). I hope this clarifies things.

(This refers to the RM to move ABC News → ABC News (United States), and ABC News (disambiguation) → ABC News, which had already been closed and actioned once before. A review of the move was inconclusive, hence why the move request was reopened.)

Rationale for closure

I have counted 8 opposed versus 27 supporting, plus one comment that mentions adding an FAQ if DABs are kept (by a person who previously opposed). There are three comments from unverified users (one was the FAQ comment, one the opposed comment by the same user, and the other supported), but those cancel each other out (leaving us with 7 vs. 26, if disregarded).

Most of the new !votes were in support of @BilledMammal's prior move, making the consensus even clearer. This suggests the concern over the previous closure was probably unwarranted. (If it had been the wrong decision, a higher proportion of new opposed !votes should have materialised than support !votes. They didn't.)

Nearly all the newer comments reflect that the evidence and/or WP policy in support of both the US and Australian media outlets being primary justifies the DABs (i.e., that there is no clear WP:PTOPIC). There is a surprising consistency in those responses, despite the confusing format of the RM, with many people specifically calling to disambiguate. There was also data saturation, in that no new arguments were being made with new responses.

I was also swayed by the arguments for WP:CSB and WP:GLOBALISE, and the lack of WP:PRECISION in the old name. The arguments against the move revolved around ABC News (United States) either having the most hits/biggest audience or it being the presumed WP:COMMONNAME/PTOPIC, which are convincing but contradict CSB, GLOBALISE, and PRECISION. There is also evidence that all the ABC News pages are popular here, suggesting we take a global view.

As per PTOPIC, we have to account for our own cultural and unconscious biases when trying to ascertain primacy of a topic. Though web pages and search engine hits can be useful, they're also imprecise tools, so have to be balanced against policy. According to that policy (see WP:CRITERIA), when a title isn't easily determined, the decision should be based on consensus.

On balance, then, there were more pro arguments and more pro !votes than ante either. The consensus to disambiguate was also the most supported by policy.

Lots of people took part in the discussion. It's been relisted twice and lots of editors have been pinged. There's been more than enough time for people to respond. There's also a backlog of RMs that need dealing with. As such, a close was now appropriate based on the consensus shown.

tl;dr: The discussion shows convincing consensus for the earlier move (rooted in policy) and thus was closed. Arguments against were well made, based primarily on WP:PTOPIC, but the same policy could also be used as evidence to the contrary, so was less convincing than the sum total of other policies. Lewisguile (talk) 18:51, 8 August 2024 (UTC)