Particularly in Sydney, I’ve been noticing (and hopefully Nine has too) a trend recently where the ratings of Seven News have not irregularly been higher during the 2nd half of the bulletin while Nine News’ numbers have been lower.
The last I checked, Seven News’ weather coverage with their meteorologists as lead forecasters in all three major East Coast capitals while Nine News only has weather presenters - very dubious quality presenters in the case of both the primary & secondary forecasters here in Sydney. Granted that weather coverage likely wasn’t the major/only reason for this happening, but Nine have already lost Brisbane to Seven this year. The five city metro ratings are also heading below 900k some nights, which surely has to be a major concern for network bosses.
They’ll eventually be in danger of losing Sydney if they aren’t thinking “Hey, maybe Seven are onto something good by having a meteorologist as our lead weather presenter. Perhaps we should do the same!” because TCN is no longer receiving the 100k+ ratings gaps as regularly as they did a few years ago - Nine News Sydney has to work a lot harder to get those eyeballs now.
Again, I can’t stress enough that weather coverage is only one issue with Nine’s 6pm bulletins on the East Coast - there are also things ranging from Sponsorship segments to metropolitan coverage of regional news (as mentioned in previous posts) and promotion that need to be looked into. I’m definitely also of the view that increased ratings competition in news is good for both viewers and the industry, but only responding to the increased competition and closing the gaps will help improve the ratings of Nine News. Remaining complacent will only see Nine News’ previously strong ratings in Sydney & Melbourne slip further.