COVID-19: Impact on Australian TV Industry

im sure abc news vic is the same . it focus’s on melbourne and not regional vic

ABC News NSW is probably a bad example given just now big Sydney is, Tasmania, WA and even Victoria are probably better at being inclusive of the whole state.

As I said, the ABC should definitely be looking at introducing regional news updates at 6:50 or 6:55. Most of the regional journos are doing video for social media anyway.

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I watch ABC News Vic almost every night and I see at least 2-3 country focused stories a week. Sure it’s not about the Mildura Show, but it’s important stories for a regional community. They do a pretty good job at balancing the news requirements of a city of 4 million people to the rest of the state.

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I think they should just include those stories in the main bulletin; as noted earlier they are state/territory-based bulletins, not capital city-based ones.

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Totally agree. ABC should do local news for all all the local radio Regions at 6.50 nightly. The cities would get one too. Then 7pm can be true state, national and international focus

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The thing is local news is often Local news and not relevant outside the area. If they put only stories that are state - wide relevant in the bulletin, well then they are not covering local news

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From what I’ve noticed in Queensland at least ABC News has regional stories but they are rarely topical news; more often long form stories on a regional/country/farm issue. There will be topical coverage of some important stories but you won’t see any of the really local stories that are covered by WIN/Prime.

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Yes but huge areas to cover with small populations so broadcasting becomes very expensive to cover small batches of people nationwide. I do get their point there, I think we will have to look at a way for the metro networks to merge with these regional affiliates fairly quickly.

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I’m suspecting we may see Seven Darwin be affected by this. Nine owns 50% of 10 Darwin so I’m assuming they would be willing to keep that channel on-air and take on the sales team from SCA.

Nine currently manages all playout and the technical side of that channel.

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Agreed.

ACM & WIN’s Bruce Gordon may well end up having caused Prime7 to collapse.

Nine’s management don’t seem at all interested in regional areas, and while they would be happy while getting half of SC9’s revenue for not much effort (basically zero effort now they’ve canned/suspended the regional 9News bulletins) that money will disappear if/when SCA collapse.
That 50% is looking pretty greedy right about now.

WIN’s problem is Bruce Gordon’s over-inflated ego; their recent difficulties under the 10 affiliation were brought on by Gordon’s belligerent attitude pushing Nine away, and subsequent revenue declines were entirely predictable.
I can’t imagine CBS would want to pay Gordon some over-inflated price for WIN, if he’d sell at all.
The question is how long (and how much) Gordon is willing to lose money just to keep his brand on air.

COVID-19 has brought the existing (slow-moving) declines in traditional media advertising to the surface, and it urgently needs addressing.

The political implications of allowing services (including TV channels) to disappear from regional areas are hard to imagine; I wonder what the regional LNP MPs - or rather their constituents - think of this prospect.

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It will be disastrous if regional broadcasters are forced to shut down transmission, meaning viewers have to live stream from 9Now, 7plus etc. 10 will be worst hit as 10 Play doesn’t stream live all day.

Nine Tasmania, WA & Mildura and Ten Darwin & Central would be cheap to buy, and in the current climate may not be subjected to the trigger (?) that would otherwise force them to provide local news (?). But would Nine and Ten be interested in buying?

win news just had a huge go at the communicatons minister regarding all this. it was very very harsh . saying hes only interested in regional tv when it suits him

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Don’t usually agree with WIN, but they, along with other regional TV companies, need to be protected!

well i think coz of whats going on i just saw win tv having 1 just 1 local news story tonight

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What was the rest of the bulletin filled with?

Re, regional TV’s latest plea for help: While there’s no doubt that the Coronavirus Pandemic is affecting just about every industry in Australia including the media/broadcasting, at the same time it has to be remembered that the Prime Media Group, WIN Corporation and Southern Cross Austereo (which are quite large companies in their own right, even if not quite on the scale of Seven, Nine and Ten) have regularly asked for more money over the years. First it was aggregation, later it was Digital TV, then the reach rules and now this.

While I obviously have great respect for the many talented people in front of the camera and behind the scenes who do a vastly underappreciated job at keeping regional TV on-air and would hate to see even more people lost to the media industry (potentially forever in some cases), at the same time I don’t have any sympathy for Bruce Gordon, Antony Catalano and other higher level management of Prime, WIN & SCA regional television who’ve failed to effectively evolve their business with the times.

Major failure #1 would have to be the failure to co-operate with their major metropolitan partners by getting the regional channels streaming online. Really, in 2020 the regional channels should be available via 7Plus, 9Now and 10 Play just like the metropolitan ones are. That is closely followed by the lack of a half decent online presence for the news bulletins, the major metropolitan commercial networks and public broadcasters do well on most platforms, but I can’t really say the same about the regional news services of Prime, WIN & SCA.

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That’s implying that people have the ability to stream

Over sky muster? Hard pass

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That’s why we need the regional terrestrial stations to stay on air, due to the limited internet speed in rural and remote areas.

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Good thing I have a setup for VAST in Renmark just in case something was to happen to our Riverland transmitter. Might have to bring back the ol’ backyard towers for Adelaide if things go pear-shaped

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