It started out in Sydney, then got moved around a bit between Canberra and Melbourne during Sydney’s COVID lockdown, then ended up Darwin.
It’s produced in Darwin, but isn’t exactly local content as it’s a generic national program.
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Noticed some new imagery in the ABC News Victoria titles last night.
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Been like that for a few days I think.
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The clocks/times in the opener have disappeared, however. Again, so little care or astonishingly low quality control standards in their graphics team.
Victoria has also dropped the blue shapes in the opener headline graphic, they’re just using the white logo tube now.
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Adelaide last night had one or two relevant images mixed in with the ones that have been used since the start.
Honestly this new package has been so so underwhelming and so poorly rolled out.
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It’s like they just decided to shake things up for the sake of shaking it up.
Been watching a bit of ABC News channel lately and this look is just so bad - and it seems that none of the issues have been addressed a month on.
Almost everything about it is a downgrade from the last package.
- The choice of blues looks extremely outdated and they don’t work well with the existing news sets
- Supers are too small to read on the SD news channel. I’d give the supers a pass if they could be read!
- The theme is horrendous. I only like the portion of the closing theme before the sting. The last theme was so much more modern.
- The headline animation graphics look bad - like really bad. Little care seems to be put into them too - the majority of bulletins seem to use the same set of images. I think NT is one of the few who update them to match the headlines?
- Also the choice of animation for the date on this slide is shocking and feels like a cheap PowerPoint transition.
- They still haven’t addressed the jarring switch from the final titlecard to the presenter.
- Also really dislike the new ABC News website. Once again, the old black look from the old package was much easier on the eye and clearer to navigate.
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NT is the only one to predominately feature local imagery, similar to the sliding panels of the 2010-2017 look. It doesn’t change each night like the 2017-2024 intro, but at least it’s local.
Victoria, and now SA have also now introduced some local imagery in the intro.
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Not sure why its so hard to match the images to the headlines. The last package has no issues with that.
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My guess is cost cutting - one less thing they have to pay the graphics people to do is to update the intro daily. Not sure how hard it is, but could mean that each state loses one person from their graphics team.
If that is indeed the case, then they should’ve designed this package to avoid images within the opening sequence!
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Generating a few photos of the day’s news is not a FTE.
The old sliders openers had static state based imagery that wasn’t changed for the life of the graphics - was totally fine. It’s just that that package was designed by a professional design agency, not in house.
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Or they could’ve just designed more than one into sequence (i.e. hae one for mornings, one for late news, one for each state). Have a few which can be rotated around.
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or even just generic local images, not this weird selection currently.
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Didn’t they do that during the N24 era? I think @Snoozenooze mentioned that too.
Well personally IIRC, during that era they had separate intro sequences for the following bulletins:
State and Territory bulletins (some bulletins had two intro sequences - one for use on weekdays and the other on weekends)
News Breakfast/Weekend Breakfast
Morning Bulletins
Noon-2pm Bulletins
Afternoon Bulletins
Evening Bulletins
plus a few stings and special openers (there was one for the G20 and one for Mandela’s funeral that I remember seeing on the old Vault)
Much more diverse and colourful if you ask me. The current graphics and images seem a little bit too “streamlined” considering the number of bulletins they are used on.
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Yep - they had a few for each program on N24 + one for each state
On that note, I wonder what was the general reaction from the Mediaspy community when each of the graphic packages used over the past few years was introduced? So far the response for this one has been pretty negative, but I haven’t been around long enough to see what past reactions have been like
The 2017 package had some teething issues at the time too, but I definitely don’t remember it being this negative. It was still a decent refresh of the previous aging package.
Some coverage of it can be seen in these threads:
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ABC Director News: Address to the Melbourne Press Club
We’re committed to public service in line with the ABC Charter. ABC News is about delivering Australians reliable information they want and need, when they want and need it, on the platforms and devices they choose.
As technology and the world changes, ABC NEWS remains grounded in enduring journalistic values of integrity, impartiality and independence.
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I can’t stand that in a cross, the reporter is in a wide box while the presenter in a slimmer box. If there’s just two people, split it in half.
Case in point:
Also when they go picture-in-picture, having the reporter floating on the top right of the screen. Put them in boxes or don’t show them at all. It’s really infuriating to watch
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