I suggested an hour because of the number of bulletins that would be consolidated, but then again, if already existing half hour bulletins are being padded out with five minute stories then perhaps half an hour would be the way to go
Consolidating - not cancelling - should mean that WIN pumps out something with a bit of substance, not just 2 minute updates. It may - or may not! - also free up WIN to deliver some sort of breakfast/morning news that isn’t All Australian News on repeat
Agree.
It’s about better use of resources. WIN Does not need to cut its news budget - just re-allocate it Smarter.
Really, these 30 minute local news formats with 20 minutes of padding have seen there day. New York does not have enough local news to fill a full 30 minutes of local news - stations fill it with local, NY state and national news too.
Wagga, bendigo and toowoomba certainly can’t fill out 30 minutes.
By focusing on 4 live state bulletins the quality would greatly improve.
I think they need to be 30 minutes at 6 due to Ten’s schedule. Ten News at 5 has been a fixture for 20 years - I would not suggest messing with that - and The Project live at 630 needs to stay too.
I think a tighter 30 minutes at 60 works fine.
And the saved money can be redirected to do a live Morning news show at 7am - where live tv viewing spikes and there is a huge opportunity to grow for WIN
Based on what I’ve seen of Prime in Albury (and I assume other areas too), availability of local content isn’t the problem. Prime Albury manage to get the whole bulletin except maybe 1 or 2 items as local, and even then those items are still highly relevant.
The difference is that on WIN every story is 1:45 to 2 minutes with reporters required to file 2 per day. Prime is a lot more flexible with some stories being shorter and voice by the presenter with local vision. It means that prime can have roughly twice the number of local items and is able to include lesser (but still relevant) items.
It wouldn’t save that much money. They will still need the same number of local reporters and recording time will be similar as currently each story is only read once, even if it appears in multiple bulletins.
I also think that going state wide over local will fail as it will reduce local content and add in heaps of irrelevant content. At least now the content shown from other areas is somewhat relevant, but people in Albury don’t care about local Ballarat issues - particularly when there are 1 or 2 more local alternatives as the same time.
We’re all dreaming anyway.
WIN has shown a complete inability to read the market and evolve the format or content of their news, or try better solutions that a format that was introduced 25 years ago. They have no idea how to experiment, adapt and evolve.
Generally companies and products that do this - die.
Interesting your comments how WIN will or should protect their turf.
Considering how most evening bulletins from SC, WIN and PRIME are put together in a similar manner, i.e. program your news with content according to weight and importance for your local audience, I wonder what your ideas are on who one would ‘rethink your format’ as you say, or are you only referring to marketing and promotion?
@2tribesmedia my comment although in the WIN thread applies to both SC and Prime7 too. Although Prime7 and Sc are aligned with the #1 network and the ratings benefits that come with that - not to mention a schedule full of 6 hours of news content a day to promote out of
WIN is stuck with #3 ten and the disaster lead in that in ten news. They have massive handicap to overcome
When I say rethink the format - the format of 30 minutes of exclusively slow paced, boring dull
News. Imagine if 7 news Sydney was all local Sydney news. No state news. Not fed govt stories. No Canberra news. No us election news. No national sports news. 'No world news. 'No news on floods in Queensland, a dream world Tradgey, boat people
Off the NT. None of that. Just local Sydney news. Traffic snarls. New Westfields. Local sport. It would die in the ratings.
That is the format WIN has - 30 minutes of 100% local news. -and to make matters worse the stories are a lot less
Interesting than Sydney
WIN is getting thrashed in the ratings
Nine, seven, ten all have composite bulletins. NBN and 9 Darwin have composite. Sc Tasmania have composite. Nine has just announced 15 new composite news bulletins. Abc has 7 across
The nations.
This is what need needs to to do evolve - turn 6pm into a faved faved composite bulletin with the best stories of the day.
ABC News actually has eight TV news bulletins at 7pm across the states and territories.
I agree with your general point though. Unless the format is changed to keep up with what audiences want in 2017, WIN News will probably die slowly and painfully in the ratings after SCA Nine launches it’s new services.
The national bulletins already deliver the national news stories hence why WIN’s “local” bulletins only broadcast local stories. The only way you’d get national stories into WIN’s bulletin would be to dump the national news bulletins already being broadcast immediately next to it.
And that was tried recently in Tasmania with a one-hour composite bulletin. It obviously didn’t work.
All Nine and seven stations have national news 430-530 then composite bulletins at 6
WIN can have a national at 5, composite at 6
If only 2 out of 3 metropolitan commercial broadcasters are bothering with news, then the regional markets are going to mirror that. This idea that WIN should create its own “news revolution” for its audience is fantasy. The game has changed and the pieces are set for an eventual reach rule removal and regional TV’s days as a provider of independently produced local news are numbered. Nine and SCA’s local news arrangements are “reach rule friendly” and viable with the way they’ve laid out their funding and operations. The amount of work Nine has to do to benefit an audience that isn’t even theirs is something we’ve never seen before and I can bet it’s the only way local news will survive into the future.
But it is theirs. People are tuning in to watch Nine programs, not Southern Cross or whoever their local affiliate is. The major networks have owned the audiences ever since aggregation allowed for single network affiliates. The affiliates are merely a middle-man to provide sales and broadcast operations. Nine and SCA obviously realise this now, and the other networks and affiliates need to realise this in order to stay relevant.
To say that WIN’s audience watching the channel 10 shows in regional Australia is like saying that people watching Netflix are Telstra’s (or whoever their ISP is) audience.
“An audience that isn’t even theirs” in the traditional affiliation sense. Of course regional viewers have always been part of metro’s audience, regardless of who owns what and what brand the audience is being subjected to. I’m saying WIN producing news that goes beyond the traditional role of an affiliate is simply fantasy and not where the industry is heading.
That’s almost the same thing. Netflix would have to be rebranded “Telstraflix” for Telstra customers for that analogy to fit in here, giving the impression to their audience that it’s a Telstra product when it actually isn’t. But yeah, essentially it would be the same middle-man role playing we see in the TV industry.
Maybe i misinterpret you, but i think that’s exactly where the industry is heading re: local news. Prime is now doing local and their own national news to some markets, and we now have this Nine/SCA venture. So why couldn’t WIN think outside its traditional news format? Whether it means better integration into Ten News or something else?
I don’t think Prime, NBN or SC Tasmania’s bulletins go beyond that role. They only do them to position their local news at a good time. I imagine Prime7’s national bulletin would get the chop if Seven brought back Today Tonight. Even if WIN used the same method, I’d still argue that doing anything that goes beyond the traditional role (placing local news at primetime) is fantasy (I.e.) a morning or afternoon news bulletin.
I was talking regards the evening bulletin, not expanding to mornings etc.
Then I agree. WIN should do whatever they can do to keep their local evening news relevant. I think involvement from Ten is the only way.
You talk of WIN as a whole, and yes SC has a strong hold in regional news across the country.
Interestingly Nine’s new composite bulletins won’t be shown in Tasmania, but Tasmania will still have composite SC and ABC news plus Melbourne’s Nine, plus Melbourne’s TEN and a statewide local news on WIN.
There are a lot issues here, and shouldn’t be all looked at in a negative content.
Unlike other regional areas Tasmania has extra content to input through Tasmanian State politics, Supreme court rounds and a capital city council. This is content over and above Australia’s other regional bulletins.
Of course the stories would be less interesting than Sydney, but locally the viewers are both dependent and supportive of local content whether it’s ABC, SC or WIN.
Additionally whilst Tasmania’s WIN News is local I notice that there is always a national wrap up within the news as well and when a major international event occurs, it is covered or leads, - Trumps election win a case in point.
At the end of the day all this driven through the requirements of aggregation, which the Australian public voted for many moons ago, everyone wanted the same as their metro cousins.
This forced regional television operators into a corner, continue with reduced revenue (one third market share) or fold, thankfully not many folded, but some did need to amalgamate.
Television doesn’t come cheap, as shareholders demand a return, and regional markets can’t provide the revenue levels that the national and metro markets can.
The result is either you abolish all local news production around the country due to costs, or you provide a service for each local community good and bad, but effectively a service.
Thankfully SC and WIN decided to retain their news services, and both provide a fair amount of content each week.
Also and most importantly, whilst you denigrate the quality, think that many young journalists, camera-persons, producers et. al. receive great training from the ground up in regional news rooms.
Regional Australia offers a lot of employment opportunities around this country of ours, and to talk it down does not service the great work young news employees undertake to give their local community a voice.
I see so many people bag the crap out of regional television news from SC Prime and WIN on this site, and yet I wonder if they themselves have to contend with the issues stated above.
It would be good to see a positive comment here and there for the good regional news bulletins do in training and employment.
To abolish it all leaves many many people walking in lines into centrelink.
As they are considered regional areas despite both being capital cities, Canberra and Darwin have territory politics and territory courts, and Darwin has the city council, so they are both similar to Hobart.
My point is WIN (and to a lesser degreee Prime7) need to start loooking at the way the new operation Is working with Nine and SCA and have the network and affiliate work together.
WIN and Ten made great noise about how they would “utilize and share resources” and what have we seen on win’s side? Nothing
Before WIN pulls the plug on local news they need to experiment and evolve the formula and start doing some things differently.