Unlikely as Nine doesn’t need it when they move their flagship HQ from Willoughby to North Sydney.
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What I’d really like to see: The new home of NBN Television also hosting the Southern NSW/ACT regional news operations, hopefully bridging the current divide between regional news production in the North of the state (for all the faults of NBN News, at least it’s produced somewhat like a proper 6pm bulletin) and the South of the state + the national capital. If successful, something similar could also be replicated for Regional Victoria & Queensland.
What I think will probably happen: Production of NBN News eventually moving to Nine’s new North Sydney HQ, complete with “streamlining” of the local news service similar to what happened in Darwin this year. There’d only be small facilities in Newcastle for anything that has to be based locally (such as the Newcastle news reporters and local ad sales) which is basically what most other regional TV stations have these days.
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Yeah, why would Nine build a second new big studio complex in Newcastle just 150km from a new studio complex in North Sydney? Playout of NBN would be more likely to shift to Frenchs Forest rather than installing a new facility in the new Newcastle building??
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If that happens, Southern NSW would probably also be copping at least 1 or 2 Newcastle news items every night like all of Northern NSW does.
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Watching NBN Central Coast tonight and seen a couple of promos for local events.
Though they are all sponsored by “NBN News” rather than say “Nine Central Coast”.
Seems like for some odd reason NBN are unwilling to use the Nine brand much at all despite the fact it’s the predominant on air brand for 23 hours a day.
Which I find a bit peculiar.
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I can’t see them staying on the Hill, or even having such a large space for anything substantial coming out of Newcastle. That’s not their MO.
If it is all about money, which I suspect it is, they’ll move as much as they can to Sydney, especially the production of news, and have the bare minimum of journalists and sales staff there. Heck, they’d give oversight to the CEO/MD of TCN…more relevant than Brisbane’s CEO pulling double duty of a station in another state.
Sad state of affairs but heck, everyone else shits on Newcastle.
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I can still see NBN having news production in Newcastle, but out of a much smaller facility, probably in Honeysuckle, as it has been rumoured here.
But yes, most everything else, notably playout, moved to Sydney.
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If they have any common sense, they will have some production out of Newcastle. But, given that Nine is a business, and like the rest of Australian commercial television, dying in the backside, if there is any money to be made, it would only make business sense to move news production to Sydney and integrate it with the rest of the Nine regional bulletins.
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That wouldn’t surprise me… If I were a betting man, which I’m not, I’d say it’s a 50/50 bet as to which way they go here.
Time will tell.
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The reasoning behind QTQ and NBN being group together would be that QTQ is a smaller operation than TCN. With TCN being responsible for a large amount of national programming, the GM of QTQ would comparatively have more time to spend on NBN issues. It may also have been thought that it would help with the overlap of QTQ and NBN on the Gold Coast to have them managed together.
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Material from my recent trip …
Some CSA’s are now produced in HD, as I saw one:
However most are still SD:
Lineups continue to only use the 9HD logo if it is program-themed, otherwise only the Nine logo is used:
Interestingly, the LCN name for the Tamworth/North West market is “New England” (9HD New England / Nine New England), despite the news bulletin being branded “North West” (that’s what it’s labelled as on their website). I guess its the same as:
- “Orange” markets having “Central West” News
- “Wagga Wagga” with “Riverina” News (except Prime7)
- “Albury” with “Border” News
WIN and Prime7 have the market labelled “Tamworth”.
Community Noticeboards - an item from Dubbo included in the New England one, I wonder if they had run out of events from inside the viewing area to list, as Dubbo is in the Orange market.
And they are always sponsored by Clubs NSW:
30 second We Love It ID:
It seems like they only have updated the 30 sec version across markets (with insertion of Samuel Djodan footage and the website details in the end tag). In my travels in the Newcastle/Mid North Coast/New England markets recently, I’ve only seen the 5 / 10 sec versions still with the older end tag, and the only longer version I’ve seen is the 30 second one - no 45 or 60 sec. Unfortunately it seems now its rare for them to play the longer versions.
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That IS bizarre!!
WHAT is NBN doing listing a Dubbo item in its Tamworth / North West Community Noticeboard?
Even Coonabarabran, kind of mid way between Tamworth and Dubbo is in SC9 territory. NBN’s signal barely makes it past Mullaley, west of Gunnedah.
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Christmas flashbacks on NBN 
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NBN signage in Gosford. 
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