Tony Eastley and the AM team are going on the road to bring listeners coverage of two state elections and the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne next week.

In the final week of the Tasmanian election campaign, AM will broadcast from the ABC’s Launceston studios on Monday March 13 and Tuesday March 14. The AM team is planning special reports and interviews all week covering the latest developments in both the Tasmanian and South Australian elections which will be held on the same day.

Tony Eastley is from Tasmania and began his journalism career there. He’s looking forward to reporting from his home state.

“It’s important a program like AM goes on location so we can deal first hand with the major players and bring these state issues to a national audience”, Eastley told radioinfo.

On Sunday, March 19, there will be a special AM edition for Tasmania, with a complete wrap-up of the election results and analysis from ABC Election Analyst Antony Green. There will also be a special election edition for South Australia complete with all their results of the Saturday polls.

The AM road show continues on Thursday, March 16, when Tony Eastley and the AM team will be in Melbourne, broadcasting live from Federation Square on the first day of the Commonwealth Games. AM will continue to broadcast from Federation Square every weekday morning at 8am for the duration of the Games.

AM is Australia’s most informative morning radio program – regularly setting the agenda for the day. It has an average weekly reach of 2 million listeners.

At the launch of the book ‘The Howard Factor’ recently, PM John Howard commented on the influence of the AM program, saying:

“I think of the changes, the enormous influence of radio current affairs programs [which] have extraordinary influence and sway.”

ABC Radio Current Affairs programs – AM, The World Today and PM are on air daily with individual audio reports, transcripts and program summaries also available online (click below).