the NBN marketing and information brochure says that 80 will be a simulcast of 8 - so I don’t know how the heck 8 can remain NBN if 80 is going to be 9HD?
I’d say that is in ref to programming. 24 hours a day it will be a simulcast of programming.
All we are debating here is what bug will be placed on the screen and promos, really.
I would’ve expected Nine to rebrand NBN, to something like Nine Northern, now that the broadband network is becoming ubiquitous. Surprised it hasn’t happened by now considering it was mooted by someone in television advertising sales several years ago.
I can’t see both brands co-existing into the future without causing some confusion no matter the heritage value of the television brand.
The new manager of NBN is also the manger or QTQ.
She will split her time between Brisbane and Newcastle.
Methinks this will mean more and more QTQ ideas coming to NBN
I think it’s quite possible that the new manager of NBN is already starting to make her mark on the station, if the observations made by viewers on this forum (eg, news tweaks, Nine HD promos) are anything to go by.
Wouldn’t you’d have to call it “Love this region” if you were to adopt those local IDs for Northern NSW?
The current look of NBN News is already quite Nine-inspired as it is (heck, it was made even more Nine-esque this week with the introduction of the “.com.au” supers and a watermark which are similar to Nine News) so I think that will be left alone for the most part until Nine News has it’s next major relaunch which NBN…or Nine Northern NSW will no doubt adopt.
If NBN News was still using their December 2008 to February 2014 branding (which looked very different to what Nine News was running during that time) you could understand them transitioning to pure Nine News branding but I think that the current look is close enough to that of Nine News without having to make major changes.
Has the usual NBN voice over guy been dumped or is he on holidays? It’s being done by the Nine VO guy.
I’m pretty sure Kev Kellaway is just on holidays.
Same thing happened back in August 2015. When Kev was on Holidays.
I’ve never liked the Kev Kellaway voiceovers …
Just sounds a bit … I dunno… I just don’t think his voice is suited to v/o’s.
Oh well, I won’t have to worry soon when the NBN branding rides off into the sunset.
Can’t believe they still using the 2012-2015 look fully. Hope they finally update to the current look March 1.
Maybe thats due to a change to ⋮⋮⋮9 and Nine didn’t want to spend the dollars developing an NBN version if they knew it was going the way of the dodo a few months later.
You’re probably right, however like it’s news service and Big Dog…Kev’s VOs are synonymous with the station. Personally, I don’t mind them for what they’re worth. Makes that mostly networked primetime lineup seem just that little bit more local. 
As much as I definitely think that the Nine Network branding we get in Sydney and other major metro markets has far higher production values and generally looks better than NBN’s implementation of it, I think it would still be sad to see the NBN Television brand become part of history.
Look at it this way…the likes of Prime, WIN and Southern Cross are regional TV brands that have a presence in many regional markets. NBN Television is probably one of the very last really local regional TV brands left in this country, to see that disappear would certainly be the end of an era in Australian TV.
Kind of agree. But it’s starting to make sense and less sense. There are costs involved with re-tagging (audio and graphics) all promos as NBN.
There are also financial benefits (ad sales) in adopting the Channel 9 brand.
And in a world of national brands like Foxtel, Stan and Netflix - it’s going to be hard to justify the people at Nine HQ in Sydney to keep local TV brands.
I mean, the cities lost their local branding decades ago. It used to be TCN Sydney and GTV Melbourne. That all went away and they adopted a network brand “Channel 9”
City TV has not had local branding for decades, so regional is just catching up.
Would be nice to see localism live on in ID’s etc. And NBN to adopt live city shot of Newcastle on the news etc.
When NBN eventually (it’s inevitable) becomes Channel 9 I would suggest:
I spoke to one of my NBN contacts yesterday afternoon, they wouldn’t tell me exact details, but when I bought it up they said, “oh, so the secrets out now”.
They gave me this. As a company, NBN will become 9 Regional by the end of the year, (no time frame, but said sooner rather than later), total rebrand. Yes they are looking to sell the Newcastle HQ at Mosbri Cres. My contact wasn’t sure if they were looking to sell & lease back, or sell & move out?
Play-out will probably go to Frenchs Forrest NPC, which ever way they go, but it wasn’t moving right now.
They didn’t say what was happening with NBN News, but if Mosbri Cres. studios go, either NBN News as we know it, will go, or it will be done from possibly Brisbane?
The new CEO is spending 2-3 days per week at Newcastle & the rest of the week at 9 in Brisbane, & there’s a lot of operational business changes going on, lots more money being available (more easily accessible, before they had to jump through hoops to get anything even close to approved) & hiring more staff (sales/office, not on air/engineering atm).
NBN is being revamped business wise (behind the scenes) to be closely related to metro 9 (Brisbane), with on air not far behind.
I guess this all helps with cost synergies when it comes to the reach rule being dropped and nine looking to acquire either WIN, SCA or at least the licenses for the areas they don’t already broadcast in.
9 Regional sounds more like the grand plan is to continue expanding beyond NNSW.
sell completely, I know of other businesses that have been approached to move in… they’ve all knocked it back.
All makes perfect sense.
I find it hard to believe local news for Newcastle would be done out of Brisbane.
I think NBN will end up moving to a much smaller, digital modern office and studio space in the Newcastle CBD (which is undergoing massive development boom) and do Newcastle and NSW local news from there.
NBN will be run the same way QTQ Brisbane/Gold Coast or STW Perth is - that is - as a network owned station.
Realistically, wouldn’t we be more likely to see NBN News (or Nine News Northern NSW) produced out of Sydney rather than Brisbane if the network really wanted to go down that route?
Although personally, I think Nine would definitely want to retain some sort of presence in Newcastle/Northern NSW for it’s news - that could prove quite beneficial if Nine News Sydney wanted to take a major story from Northern NSW. Instead of doing what they usually do now by getting a Nine Sydney reporter like Damian Ryan to cover a major story in Northern NSW, they could save money by just using an NBN/Nine NNSW reporter for that report.
Branding wise, I think that NBN/Nine Regional would most likely take all the general network branding with little hints of localism (like local IDs, local VOs for Sponsor Billboards, etc.) if/when they rebrand. NBN News will probably continue to refresh it’s current look to include more Nine-esque elements but I don’t think we’ll see pure unadulterated Nine News branding in Northern NSW until they move out of Mosbri Cresent and the national/major metropolitan Nine News bulletins get their next relaunch (I think that will probably happen within the next 12-18 months).
I don’t think NBN News will be done out of Sydney or Brisbane.
I think regional operations have long be used to the idea of doing 6 versions of the local news - but Sydney, with the huge amount of resources needed for 6pm news, plus national 3pm, 4pm news and news updates and 5am news - I don’t think it makes sense to then also do 6 local editions/windows of NBN News. I think it is actually easier to do that from a small new digital studio in Newcastle.
I think the same applies to Brisbane - they have local bulletins in the morning and afternoon as well as controlling the Gold Coast bulletin. I think it has been mentioned before that they don’t have another studio available.
The only thing that surprises me is that it’s taken this long to happen.
NIne Entertainment have owned NBN for nearly 10 years now.