At this point local news on WIN/SCA/Prime seems like an outdated relic of the past that’s not necessary today. For regional viewers better to leave that in the hands of the ABC and let the regionals just air metro programming.
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I think it’s still important that regional Australians do have some level of local news on TV, because these bulletins do pick up on important stories that the metropolitan ones wouldn’t ever dream of running even on a slow day.
What really needs to change is the format in which stories are presented/delivered to viewers.
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Here in Canberra I find it much more worthwhile to get local news from websites such as the RiotACT or Canberra City News and occasionally I’ll tune into ABC news at 7pm.
I agree it would be nice to have proper live to air news bulletins like we had in the past but I don’t think it would happen without a lot of government support (which would be better spent on ABC local news anyway)
I would like to see consistent branding across the 3 networks
Prime, WIN and Capital (or Southern Cross)
OR
7Prime, 9WIN and 10Capital (or 10 Sth Cross)
OR
7, 9 and 10.
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If we’re using numbers prefer to see them branded as the actual channel numbers they are (5, 6, and 8) instead of 7, 9, and 10 because it actually makes sense.
Otherwise bring back Prime, WIN and Capital.
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It’s good that we have these sources of local news but they’re still lacking in any real depth and investigative journalism with a lot of the content on RiotACT being reproduced media releases and the like (which isn’t that different from WIN news, actually).
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Because SCA doesn’t want to upset NBN TV. NBN TV is one very angry television network if it loses 9 network. I’m glad it didn’t otherwise Newcastle auf northern NSW would have had less local news,
NBN is owned by Nine though…?
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There’s still a few people who call GTS-BKN “Channel 4”.
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Same with my Mum and NBN or “Channel 3” as she referred to it.
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I don’t think SCA particularly cares about the feelings of a station not owned by them.
…and a few people in Broken Hill might still refer to the station as “Channel 7”? Although that technically is the current station brand! 
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Nah, only the Spencer Gulf side. I’d imagine some Broken Hill locals would still refer it to their old local channel number, as you pointed out.
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I reckon the chances of anyone in Canberra referring to the channel currently called Channel 10 as Channel 7 (its original name - CTC7) is probably zero.
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You’ll find the name Capital will still be heard on the streets of Canberra when referring to CTC.
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In regards to 7 or 9 or 10?
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@Bort you reside in Australia’s capital, don’t you? How do you see things in regards to regional TV and its presence/local output/branding/future etc? In what would be one of the larger regional sub-markets.
I remember reading a Canberra newspaper article a few years or so back, mightve even been linked here on MS, which actually obtained RegionalTam ratings and analysed the nightly news services and the results were very interesting, showing Prime7 and Seven News (which IIRC is a relay of Seven News Sydney) actually came out on top vs WIN and Southern Cross. Can’t remember if this was pre or post affiliation switch, as SC of course launched local bulletin under Nine.
But to me, that was telling, locals choosing Sydney news over ACT stories. And coming from someone like me who resides in metro (even though I don’t really associate myself with the big smoke tbh) seemed surprising.
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People who were around back in the day may refer to Capital or Capital 7 when talking about the station that once was but nobody today would refer to the current SCA owned channel 10 station as ‘Capital’.
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Growing up in Canberra I never had any affinity for the local brands; I just felt like we were missing out, until aggregation improved the situation.
The cover-ups and rebranding always seemed somewhat pointless.
Obviously not everyone feels the same.
The future of regional TV has to be changing the metro networks to truly national networks. Look at the superior service provided by the networks on their owned-and-operated regional stations.
The future of TV in-general however, isn’t broadcast. Broadcast TV is hanging on because Abbott damaged the NBN, otherwise so much more of the population could be watching all the channels in full HD instead of putting up with blurry SD on large UHD (4k) TVs.
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Many Canberra locals are used to watching Sydney news for top national stories and may switch over to ABC at 7pm for local Canberra news. We’ve had Sydney news on our screens for a very long time (decades) and we’re quite familiar with it.
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