ABC eyes Stewart's Daily Show formula for Australian audience Focusing on the young: ABC will explore a "Daily Style" type show for local TV audiences. The ABC will design news and current affairs shows for young people as part of a range of ideas made possible by $90 million of new government money. ABC managing director Mark Scott said he would ask a team of journalists, digital and entertainment experts to find creative ways to deliver news to children and teenagers. Mr Scott cited the popular American satirical programs, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report, as examples of shows that melded news and entertainment in a package that appealed to younger audiences. In Australia, ABC programs such as Triple J Hack, Hungry Beast and Behind the News for school children, had met a similar goal, he said. The Colbert Report: Format holds appeal to the ABC. "We want to be relevant to all Australians, not just older Australians," Mr Scott said. Younger audiences are interested in news ... but they don't particularly want it formatted and delivered in a way that it would've once been delivered to their parents. Of the ABC's new funding announced in Tuesday's Budget, about $60 million will go to news and current affairs and about $30 million will be given to improve and expand the ABC's online services. The broadcaster will get about $2.5 billion in base funding over the next three years. "We want to be relevant to all Australians": Mark Scott. Mr Scott expects to use some of that money to hire more journalists in regional areas and to experiment with live streaming its radio and television shows. Another possible use of the new money was to see if the ABC could run longer seasons of certain TV shows such as Lateline, Four Corners and Insiders. "One of the things our audiences have said to us is they feel that pulling up stumps in November is a little too early in the year," Mr Scott said. Coalition governments tend to be less generous towards the ABC, but Mr Scott claimed not to be concerned about the prospect of Tony Abbott winning the September election. In 1996 the newly elected Howard government cut $55 million from the ABC's annual budget and when pressed on the issue of ABC funding earlier this month, opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull refused to rule out trimming the ABC's budget. Mr Scott must also navigate the ever-present culture wars. Last December, Mr Abbott told the Australian Financial Review there was an "ongoing issue of bias in the ABC news and current affairs section." "I think there is still this left-of-centre ethos in the ABC and I hope that Mark Scott continues to address it," Mr Abbott told the newspaper. Mr Scott had not spoken to Mr Abbott specifically about those remarks, but said he thought politicians on both sides of Parliament had "great respect" for the ABC's work.