Channel Seven had an excellent On-Air Presentation package back in 1999 (which became even better when the news was updated around a month later - at least in Sydney/Melbourne), just a shame that many of the elements were watered down when the logo change happened!
Mind you, graphics aren’t everything to a network. The one Australian TV viewers had as their favourite at the time was running this (which to be fair, was a decently crafted look in its own right):
I’m sure the Green Guide Letters page was also inundated with complaints. At least it gave them something else to complain about rather than how ABC newsreaders pronounced their words
Also around this time, there was this famous stoush between Seven and Nine over the use of the word “leading” in Perth, where the former had been leading since 1991.
That’s also when brand new graphics and music bites were introduced in Sydney and Melbourne, which both had identical news sets. I wonder when the rest of the country followed suit.
This is the Seven [Nightly] News Brisbane opener from January 1, 2000 -
I also do recall an opener from November 1999 where the graphics used in Syd/Melb hadn’t been rolled out in Brissy yet.
So much easier to bitch and moan about what the networks do these days. I remember using snail mail to express my outrage and disapproval of the Prime watermark when it was introduced in the mid 1990s. I should dig out the reply I received and post it here one day.
A promo based on the show’s opening titles, used to run after Seven National News in Melbourne each night to remind us about Eleven AM tomorrow morning 
YouTube: Australian TV Fan
That’s it!
I remember the cut they used in the Liebmann era being a bit longer.
I think the main male presenter in that clip is Ian Hyslop. Most of us will recognise Paul Marshall as the newsreader. Both went on to be US correspondents for Seven.
The One to Watch slogan was introduced 20 years ago today tomorrow which was a successful 5 year run until it’s axing in July 2003.
Also the 5 colour bar was introduced with Red, Yellow, Orange, Green and Blue similar to 9’s 2012-2015 look.
I don’t remember either how it worked with Graham Kennedy as host but AFAIK it was not a long term gig for him. Maybe a few months? I can’t recall. Be interesting to see if it had shades of what was to come with Graham Kennedy’s News Show a few years later on Nine.
I’ll have to find a few of my replies too. I wrote a couple to Southern Cross and one to WIN and the ABC from memory. I’d forgotten about those!
I wrote to Prime about their watermark when it first appeared on air in Newcastle in 1992.
All I got each time was a reply along the lines of “thank you for your feedback. It has been placed on file” and that was it.
The 11am format was quite good, a shame we don’t have it anymore, much better than the morning news or the morning shows.
Are you talking about this one? One of the strangest openers I’ve ever seen tbh
Also, does anyone know when exactly Anne Fulwood started her brief role at Seven News Melbourne? Did it coincide with the new graphics or was it slightly before it?
Interesting… Retaining the prior logo font with modified graphics, but sadly not the best quality. BTW is that globe “crappy” (on Jimmy Neutron-levels of quality) CGI?
Mid 1999 after the axing of 11AM
June 21, 1999.
This excerpt is from Ross Warneke’s “Ratings” column in The Age on 1 July, 1999:
Weeks later the same journalist speculated initial interest in the new pairing had waned because of a lack of chemistry between Johnston and Fulwood and viewer reaction to a Sydneysider being added to the bulletin, although Fulwood was originally from Adelaide. Rival news bosses described the format as “cumbersome and unfriendly”.
Personally I think the relaunched On-Air Presentation of Seven Nightly News in 1999 (at least from the snippets I’ve seen) was ahead of its time in some ways. Standing headlines, multiple camera angles, Sport & Weather previews…Nine is actually doing all that and more with the presentation of their Sydney & Melbourne 6pm news bulletins in 2019!
However, I suspect Nine had the edge over Seven in 1999 where it really counted - content and on-air talent. For every David Johnston, Anne Fulwood, Jim Wilson, David Brown and Peter Mitchell, Nine had Peter Hitchener, Tony Jones, Rob Gell & Jo Hall. That gap no doubt would’ve been wider in Sydney where Nine even had iconic fill-in presenters (Jim Waley, Ian Ross, then-rising star Peter Overton who would’ve been used as a Sydney 6pm fill-in occasionally by 1999) let alone the Hendo/Kenny/Wilkie dream team.
Yes. I also wonder when Adelaide and Perth adopted the new Seven Nightly News theme and/or graphics. Could’ve been in the second half of 1999 or at the latest, the start of 2000.
I didn’t mind David and Anne at Seven. Ten News was at 5.00 so that was off my radar and I never really warmed to Nine.
It’s well known that Hendo had been at the helm of Nine News Sydney on weeknights since 1964 and given his longevity he was never going to be knocked off his perch.
Peter Overton has lasted over a decade now and he could last another two decades (he is 53 this year). But I highly doubt he will make it to 2047, at the end of which he would be 81. Best bet is 2037, at the end of which he will be 71.
And for the record, DJ and Fulwood were punted just after the Sydney Olympics, to be replaced by Peter Mitchell who remains in his role today. Glad that Seven has stuck with him right through the tough times that were the early noughties and the most part of this decade.
Seven News Melbourne’s best rating year since the turn of this century was 2009, when it won 34 out of 40 ratings weeks. While Nine News only won six weeks in that market that year, it was still fairly competitive and the Melbourne bulletin was the only metro Nine News bulletin to win any weeks that year (the rest of the country’s metro bulletins won 0 weeks between them, including Peter Overton’s first year up against the final-year Ian Ross in Sydney).
