Continuing the conversation about the (possible) future of NBN News into a more relevant thread…
I’d like to hope so.
Mind you, NBN/Nine are probably also strongly advantaged by not having any proper competition for local news in the Newcastle/Hunter region.
Arguably the Central Coast could benefit from the Nine News Regional-style of production. While I doubt this will happen, their facilities on the Central Coast should be used as a bureau for the main Sydney bulletin - there and possibly Western Sydney (one of the networks probably should have a bureau there too) are two potential “hot spots” for expansion by Nine News in the future, I think.
Jane Goldsmith is NBN News’ best presenter by a considerable margin, but I’d even go as far as saying that Tyson Cotrill is a better/more authoritative newsreader than either Paul or Tash!
Mitchell Hughes’ Sport presenting is neither really here or there - passable, but I probably wouldn’t be totally disappointed if Nine replaced him with Mike Lorigan or Kate Haberfield if the presentation side of bulletins moved to North Sydney.
Again, Gavin Morris is probably the most interesting situation with a strong dislike for Sydney but at the same time, being someone Nine obviously likes based on the fact he also presents the Southern NSW/ACT forecasts and has also been a regular Cat Fight “Chat Room” guest on Nine News Now.
Similar probably could’ve been said about Nine News Darwin, but we all know what happened there.
And yes, I know how Northern NSW is a more populated market but once you take out the overlap of the Gold & Central Coast markets (who are far more likely to be watching Seven or Nine at 6pm rather than NBN) that 2 million+ residents becomes barely over a million, maybe even slightly under seven figures: Still by far the most populated non-metro market but with that large population spread across an area larger than any of the main five, probably not quite enough to justify full local production with a metro-standard set and weekend news, etc.