Nine News Content and Appearance (2015-Sept 2020)

I haven’t seen a clip, but, by my measure, any weather presenter who needs to use a script to deliver the weather (when they have a plasma alongside them), isn’t a great weather presenter.

David Brown is quite the opposite:

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Personally, I also think they should be using some form of live backdrop - absolutely essential for the Sydney market IMO.

Seven News rarely gets praise from me these days, but one of the very few things they do right is having a live backdrop during both the 4pm & 6pm Sydney bulletins.

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On-camera meteorologists should be able to adlib forecasts — in the US, weather is the most fungible segment with split-second calls to stretch or cut down — though I’m quite impressed with Brownie being able to recall several specific specs without his presentation stack.

That said, telling a forecast takes contextual understanding of what’s happening in the atmosphere and for presenters who have other editorial duties, perhaps the best they’ll get is edited bureau copy — it’s an absolute last resort if you’re reciting numbers and symbols off the screen. On one hand, I don’t expect anywhere near as much polish from a presenter as from an OCM, but on the other, they can do better.

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Nine Brisbane has also run a countdown to the weather in the final ad break in the news this week. The problem, is when the countdown runs out the weather doesn’t start! There are several reports so it is about 3 minutes before the weather segment.

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Actually, he has been varying the camera angles and the use of set. Last night’s Perth news is an example, where the bulletin opened with a LHS wideshot for a standing intro. In fact, I would say he is over-using the OTS graphics.

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This week’s viewer competition here in Sydney, possibly the last for the year unless they do the (probably) inevitable tennis-related ticket giveaways before the end of December:

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it really shows that she has been doing the weather for this long and hasn’t picked up on some general things that happen in her region and mostly around the same time each year (few exceptions provided). By that clip it honestly looks like it’s not her passion and she’s just doing it because, unlike Brownie who lives breathes and eats meteorology. Her retention rate is low for someone who has been in the job for nearly 8 years is lower than expected (ofc it would be weird for me to not highlight that she has News Now to think about, but 9 should get a dedicated weather presenter who isn’t presenting a fluffy bulletin for Sydney).

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Amber presented fill-in Sydney weather forecasts for a while before then but from memory, only took over the main role towards the end of 2012 after Natalie Gruzlewski (who I personally found to be a bit over-cheery, similar to Belinda Russell) moved back up North. So about six years.

As I’ve said repeatedly, I personally think Nine News Sydney needs to look at getting themselves a meteorologist. Mind you it’d be hard to say for sure without seeing quarterly or minute by minute figures, but one wonders if it’s more than coincidental that many of Seven’s ratings increases/Nine’s ratings decreases happened during the 6.30pm half of the bulletin this year?

My first suggestion would be for Nine to try and “pull another Chris Uhlmann” by going after Graham Creed, the one TV forecaster in Sydney/NSW who is better than David Brown. But realistically, they probably need to somehow find a female meteorologist because it definitely wouldn’t be a good look for Sydney’s leading news service to not have at least one female presenter in-studio on Sunday-Thursday while the chances of TCN changing their popular main news/sports presenters or having something like a Pete & Deb duo at 6pm are very slim to none.

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You’ve missed the obvious choice. There isn’t a more passionate weather presenter in Sydney than Tim Bailey. He’d lose his freakin’ mind if he had a weather wall the size of Nine’s to work with. I imagine he’d add backflips to his routine and there’s also the opportunity to bust a few new rhymes considering “fine” works so well with “nine”.

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Nine’s pumpin’ it out on Telecasters!

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Just caught the end of the Nine News Sydney simulcast on community radio station Hope103.2.

Nearly 10 years on from the name change to the bulletin, they are STILL referring to it as the “National Nine News simulcast”.

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Even if the producer is feeding him a few temperatures through his earpiece, that’s amazing.

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Nine doing national afternoon news from Monday… (until after the Tennis, So I’m guessing)

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That’s dissapointing, I was hoping that Nine would continue airing the local afternoon bulletins until they inevitably took time off air during the tennis.

Any word if Nine News Melbourne at 4pm is remaining on-air (as the case was last year, from memory) or if GTV will be running a nationalised bulletin over Summer?

It is much easier and cheaper to run the national bulletins. I would even argue that the ratings won’t move at all.

I am not sure about Melbourne or Perth, though. Unlike the Brisbane and Adelaide markets, Melbourne has enough talent to present- Dougal Beatty, Carrie Anne Greenbank, Andrew Lund (fill-ins on the regional bulletins) or Madeline Slattery.

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I guess so, but didn’t Seven continue running their local afternoon bulletins in all markets last Summer?

Looking at the EPG it’s national 4pm bulletins from Monday.

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Interesting to hear.

Hopefully, the local bulletins will return after the tennis and won’t be quietly cancelled like the Queensland edition of Nine’s Morning News was.

Come next year, I honestly hope that all the local afternoon news bulletins can get a proper opener (especially Sydney/Melbourne/Adelaide). The current opener is very abrupt and jarring to watch. They should make the local afternoon news openers align with the national and 6pm bulletins.

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Same with the morning and first at five bulletins.
Always hated how Nine never do a proper opener for them.