I watched the ABC’s NYE coverage for the 9pm and midnight fireworks, the rest of the time I had Sky News Australia on.
The Sky News Australia coverage with Paul Murray in my opinion was superior as it showed what was happening in other Australian cities plus NZ.
The ABC coverage was an improvement on previous years.
9PM Family and Midnight Fireworks with official soundtrack is up
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Last night ABC’s Media Watch had a story on AMP declining the broadcaster access to the balcony of Circular Quay headquarters for this year’s NYE broadcast. Host Paul Barry said that AMP’s decision came after last week’s Four Corners episode exposing fraudulent behaviour by the financial giant, but AMP denied the two things were related.
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s4877258.htm
AMP may well be telling the truth. The AMP Centre was closed in March for redevelopment, so it could be that AMP needs the older shorter AMP Building for its own use on New Year’s Eve.
ABC wants the public to vote on what songs they’ll perform on New Year’s Eve. A big concert is planned after last year’s success.
If her major involvement in their upcoming Invictus Games coverage is well received by viewers, I really hope the ABC will be smart enough to consider letting Chris Bath have a presenting role in this year’s New Years Eve coverage. Surely I can’t be the only one?! 
Bath is too competent to host NYE!
Sorry for dragging out the old rights question again, but when do these rights go up for grabs? After many years on the ABC (the first few with below par coverage), Ten might be in need of a one-time ratings grab.
Ten probably don’t want it. The other commercials don’t.
Sadly that’s probably true. Ten did have coverage of it many years before and it was not bad. Certainly better than the crap ABC served us with for the first few years until NYE last year.
It was infamously savaged by critics and viewers.
I’m pretty sure if any networks were to do NYE coverage nowadays they would be ‘savaged’ thanks to stupid News Corp and their ‘quality’ journalism. Sad but true reality (probably even more real than reality shows).
The 2006 NYE coverage on TEN was controversial where Matt Newton was involved in an on air incident with John Foreman where he performed in simulated sex acts and using obscene language. This has been condemned by several viewers. Luckily I did NOT watch this coverage when Matt Newton was on the TV.
The 2007 NYE coverage on TEN was better than the 2006 with Kim Watkins as host. The NYE2007 coverage on TEN was more family friendly coverage. I remembered back in 2007, where CHannel 9 had the NYE Party Mix where it was telecasted on TV with Richard Wilkins as host.
The problem with this is that it wasn’t part of the coverage. The incident in question was part of a variety show that was recorded and placed between the fireworks coverage. Facts didn’t get in the way of news Corp savaging the coverage as a whole.
…or the City of Sydney seemingly deciding to have some level of creative control in the fireworks telecasts after Ten’s broadcasting efforts, to the point of having “sydney.com” watermarks (which were only “sydney” on ABC telecasts for obvious reasons) on screen!
If the City of Sydney has any creative control in the NYE fireworks, I’m starting to understand why the networks don’t really want to do it anymore.
ABC’s first few years was also criticised with the first show panned by various media outlets.
Switched off 2013 until just before the Midnight fireworks after hearing the negative reviews from even loyal ABC viewers. The 2013 show was up there with Ten’s 2006 show.
which one was it where Julia Zemiro was heard uttering ‘thank god’ when the credits ran?
I think it was 2014-15.
we then had last year with Charlie’s ‘kill a policeman’ gaffe.
Found the video