The market dynamics in Canada and Australia are pretty similar.
Canadian FTA networks now do about 20 local news fast channels from what I can see.
Aussie networks do zero
CBC is pretty cash strapped .if they can produce 24 local news fast channels - for relatively small cities - then Australia can too
Yeah - but you know better than I do how stuck in the past these Aussie networks are. They won’t do anything like that until they’re dragged into it, kicking and screaming. FGS they still think overrunning shows is an acceptable practice! Total knuckleheads (IMO only…)
Tg2, the Italian newscast from Rai 2, debuted their new theme tune, graphics and studio on Saturday to celebrate their 55th anniversary. It marked the return of the 1976 symbol and 3-note jingle in modern arrangement, as a dedication to maintain the audiences’ longtime trust. In their own words:
The Saxa Rubra studio, meanwhile, puts the anchor in “the center of the information”. This is a supercut of the flagship bulletin, Sera (at 8.30pm):
And Post, a newspaper review programme following the news:
Over in Hong Kong, Now News introduced new graphics in early April. Not too fond of the titles, which changed from a city made of gears to one made of presumably donuts.
Supers wise, the headline/name straps are brought in line with the rest of the news channel (Ch 332), plus a more rounded look to the shoulder graphic. ViuTVSix’s English news bulletin updated the titles, but not the straps.
Before:
After:
DW has adopted cleaner supers and a new sans serif font in its branding. The former is applied to their Arabic and Spanish feeds as well.
Some captures from their YouTube livestream, including the preceding promos:
Yle has formally unveiled today a brand new look for its daily news and sport programming. Replacing a look dating back to 2014 and a studio dating back to 2019, the 10 million new studio, built in another studio space inside Yle’s Helsinki HQ, was a fully in-house work, developed under the direction of creative director Mika Lavonen, whilst the new graphics were done by DixonBaxi. Lavonen said the decision to replace the 2012 look was due to its already cold and drap design, disconnected with its audience, instead of the Yle teal, lila purple and lime green are used for news and sport. The high cost of the new studio has generated strong controversy by many of its competitors, some politicians, and local tabloids.
Finnish news at 6pm:
TV-nytt (Swedish news):
Finnish news at 8.30pm:
Urheiluruutu (sports news):
A-studio (analysis show):
News stories on the rebrand:
Later this month, NRK is also changing the look of its newscasts, with the shows having decamped to a temporary studio; rumors are also suggesting DR’s TV Avisen will also get a new set later in the summer (with no change whatsoever to their graphics, however).
Some fairly big developments in Canadian TV in the last few days…
Corus announced on Friday that Warner Bros Discovery is not renewing their content and trademark agreements with Corus. This agreement will expire on December 31, 2024. Some WBD channels that Corus runs in Canada are Food Network, HGTV, Adult Swim, and Cartoon Network.
Today, Rogers announced that it has struck a deal with WBD (and NBC Universal) to bring their content and channels to Canada starting January 2025. No word if Rogers will rebrand some of its existing cable channels to the ones above, launch new channels, or buy the existing channels that Corus owns.
Also today, Rogers has announced that a new CityNews 24/7 FAST channel will be launched for Alberta (Calgary/Edmonton). The BC and Ontario FAST channels are available on Rogers Ignite (cable) in their respective regions, and it’s a safe bet that this new one will also be available to Rogers TV customers in Alberta. Also, former Entertainment Tonight Canada host (and Corus castaway) Cheryl Hickey will join the company on the new 10 AM hour of Breakfast Television.
With the 11-year signing of regional broadcast rights for the NHL’s Edmonton Oilers announced last week, it’s been a pretty good few days for Rogers (and a fairly bad few days for Corus).
The new look is now on air, with a modified set and new graphics, now in line with the new NRK brand identity designed by Anti, including their NRK Sans font and new music with the new NRK sonic branding (it’s goodbye to the wonderful Röyksopp music). The changes started with pan-Nordic Sámi newscast Ođđasat (produced by NRK and distributed through Nordvision to SVT and Yle, which also does its own production in the Southern dialect):
And here’s Dagsrevyen’s new intro:
Simulcast radio shows also got a lick of paint in their studio booth, as well as a new cold open graphic:
The new look was also rolled out to the TV side, with the NRK TV channels already using new DOGs (but the other graphics are still with the Kemistry 2011 logos and idents):
Speaking of Yle Ođđasat, here’s their new intro on the lines of the new Yle Uutiset brand:
Yle also produces a mid-afternoon newscast for the Russian-speaking minority:
And Finnish sign language (no video yet) and simple Finnish bulletins:
And the final piece of the rebranding, the morning news, Ylen aamu:
Another wave of layoffs has hit Canadian media, this time at Global News. Beleaguered media company Corus Entertainment announced cuts to its news division on July 12.
The big change to happen is that all weekend local news programming (7-10 AM, 6-7 PM, 11-11:35 PM) at CITV Edmonton and CICT Calgary will be changed from live and local production to Global’s MMC production format. Production and presentation of the weekend morning shows will be done out of Edmonton, while the 6 PM and 11 PM for both stations will be done out of Calgary.
In addition, the presentation of the weekday 5 PM, 6 PM, and 11 PM for CISA Lethbridge will move to the Calgary studios.
As well, Global has eliminated “single function” roles across the news division.
The MMC method of news production was slowly implemented on all Global stations east of Alberta starting in 2015. While it resulted in the loss of news production jobs, the efficiencies created has allowed Global to maintain hours of local news programming on all of its stations. The company also won an Edward R Murrow Award for innovation back in 2017. In recent years, an MMC hub was created out of Global Regina to spread out the workload that the Toronto hub was currently doing.
DailyHive story on the latest cuts at Global News:
https://dailyhive.com/calgary/global-news-layoffs-alberta-edmonton-calgary
An update to the cuts happening at Global News in Canada…
It’s been reported by the Canadian Association of Journalists and the podcast “Toronto Mike” that Global Toronto’s 5:30/6 PM news anchor Alan Carter, as well as Global National’s Toronto-based weekend anchor Farah Nasser have been let go.
Both Carter and Nasser were Global Toronto’s primary news anchors from 2014 to 2021, until Nasser was selected to be the new weekend anchor for Global National. Carter also hosted a daily radio show on sister AM station 640 Toronto, and the weekly Ontario politics show “Focus Ontario”.
Currently, Carter’s co-anchor Tracy Tong is presenting the Global Toronto 5:30/6 PM news solo. She also continues to co-anchor Global News at 11 for Kingston, Peterborough, Montreal, Halifax, and New Brunswick (alongside each market’s local anchors), as well as solo anchor Global News at 11 Toronto.
A year after their new studio debut, MBC’s 5pm bulletin is reformatted with a heavier economic focus and moved into the set.
It, plus Newsdesk and the 2 O’clock News, are currently the ones in that set; daytime bulletins (MBC News Today, the 9.30 and 12 O’clock News) and breaking news stay in the other.
Earlier in May, KBS News 6 on KBS2 also doubled down on economic journalism and was reformatted into 경제콘서트 (Economy & Concert), with a more interesting delivery via a ‘value up’ concept to both households and companies.
In Denmark, TV2 Nord, the broadcaster’s regional station in the North, debuted a new brand and news graphics in May, which modelled closely after the main network’s. Suspect other regions may eventually do the same.
The white bar at the bottom might be for fitting the ticker on TV2 Nord Salto, their 24-hour local channel that simulcasts 2 of their regional bulletins:
They always do very effective marketing promos for news in the Us
Thai PBS’ news programmes recently refreshed their look, which are now preceded with a new logo animation of their overarching department. This is early morning news, วันใหม่ (New Day):
The 4pm news, ทันข่าว 16.00 น (Catch Up on the News at 16.00):
and the evening news, ข่าวค่ำ:
Earlier, their world news bulletin, ทันโลก กับ Thai PBS (Keep Up with the World /w Thai PBS) changed from light blue to a dark red globe, which vaguely resembled BBC’s current design language. They’ve since moved into the new(?) set like the others:
Do any of our Canadian contributors have further info on the latest cuts at Global? I saw the statement that said news was “reimagined” in some markets but no details.
The talk is that the news operations at CHEX Peterborough, CKWS Kingston, and CHBC Kelowna have been decimated.
Regarding CHEX and CKWS, they had local morning (6-9 AM), 6 PM, and 11 PM. Word is that both stations have lost their morning shows. Also, CKWS is losing local production entirely; they had retained their own production control room and studio staff up until this point (they also did not use a virtual set there); CHEX has had their production converted into the “MMC” format for some time with locally based anchors, and had been using a virtual studio controlled from Toronto. I believe local presentation for both CHEX and CKWS News will be done from Toronto now under MMC, and there will only be a small newsroom with VJs left behind to fill content for weekday local 6 PM and 11 PM newscasts.
The longtime anchor at CKWS, Bill Hutchins, commented on his forced departure on X/Twitter:
https://x.com/CKWS_Hutch/status/1814103438613221493
(Note: Peterborough and Kingston are fairly small cities, both having around 130,000 people metro. It’s fairly uncommon for cities this size in Canada to have TV stations doing local morning news.)
Over on CHBC Kelowna, it’s understood that they will also be losing local presentation, and only a newsroom with a small number of video journalists will be left behind. Currently, CHBC has newscasts at 5 PM (1 hour), 6:30 PM, and 11 PM on weekdays, and 5:30 PM on weekends. These newscasts are presented from the Kelowna studios using a control room at Global BC in Vancouver. One tweet from a former CHBC reporter is suggesting that CHBC News will be eliminated entirely, and that VJs left behind in Kelowna will be reporting for Global BC.
https://x.com/Shelby_Thom/status/1814090038470455346
This is on top of cuts announced back in June, where amongst other changes Global Calgary and Edmonton’s weekend newscasts will be produced in the MMC format - Edmonton staff will produce two separate morning shows for both stations, while Calgary will produce two separate sets of 6 PM and 11 PM newscasts for both stations.
An update to the above:
CHEX and CKWS’s local newscasts have returned after a few days hiatus.
This morning, both stations simulcasted Global Toronto’s morning news.
This evening, the new evening news schedule launched for both stations. Just like Global Montreal, CHEX and CKWS will now have two separate local newscasts at 5:30 and 6:30, with Global National now airing at 6 PM (previously, CHEX/CKWS had Global National at 5:30, with a full hour at 6 PM).
The newscasts now share an anchor - CHEX’s Keri Ferguson. She presents the news for both stations from the CHEX Peterborough studio via a control room at Global Toronto.
Shocking - huge loss, particularly for Kelowna.
Have to wonder whether they’ll do similar to CTV and scale back to just weeknight news in the markets they’ve historically done well in. Problem is, I think they’ve only really dominated Vancouver!
The fact that cities the size of Townsville had 3 hour local morning news, 12pm local, 6pm local and 11pm local is astouding!
In Australia - Sydney and Melbourne with 5 million have 1 local news at 6
Everything else national.
If 130k is the city population - is that the whole TV market? They were making 3 hour local morning news for just 130k? Or was there like 500k in the wider TV market?
130k is the METRO population for each Peterborough and Kingston. Both cities sit between Toronto and Ottawa. CHEX’s broadcast signal actually includes CHEX-2 in Durham region, which is right on the doorstep of the Greater Toronto Area.
In both cities, they are getting CHEX/CKWS and Global Toronto over the air (much like how Gold Coast gets NBN and 9 Gold Coast). Global previously had separate transmitters in Kingston and Peterborough, and CHEX/CKWS were CBC/CTV affiliates in earlier times.
To CTV and Global’s credit, they have tried to maintain some kind of local/provincial morning news in most markets in the last few years despite the waves of layoffs each network has had. Other than Global News Morning in Kingston and Peterborough, only CTV Morning Live Saskatoon has been cancelled. They could have easily cancelled those local shows and went with completely national shows.
Global also dominates in Edmonton, and is very competitive in Calgary. My understanding is that Global saw a spike in viewership with their weekend news across the country when CTV cancelled weekend news at most stations.