The sad thing is, unless 7 or 10 acquire their respective SCA licences, which are unlikely at present unless SCA unloads them in future, nobody cares enough to step in here to either trigger anything or do their own local news bulletin. Even if SCA did local bulletins for NT that’d be something. Sadly not. Dark day for media as a whole.
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The people of Darwin should force the federal government to make news mandatory in that area similar to the other regional areas like regional QLD, NSW and Victoria. it’s a different case to the more remote areas. Given it’s in a cyclone prone area the news should be made mandatory there. The present system is not acceptable.
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Hopefully the retention of one crew in Darwin will mean a couple of Darwin/NT news reports will make the QLD bulletin each week.
And hopefully the “statewide” weather will be updated to include NT.
Not hopeful these will happen, but it’s something.
They could always pre-record a separate Darwin/NT weather segment to play as an opt-out?
But that might make too much sense.
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Nine News Darwin was on Imparja’s 9Gem service. Indeed I wouldn’t be shocked if they accidentally rebroadcast a delayed Nine News Queensland due to the lack of advance warning.
Huge shame for those at 9 Darwin- I get that a full 60 minute news bulletin, however recycled the national content was, was a big cost deal. But they would have had ways to cut it down for some cost savings, either to a 30 minute service or even just extended updates/opt out segments, not slash the entire thing in one go.
Any Government action on this just needs to be funding the ABC to grow their local reporter count to do more, the commercial sector clearly can never make it work.
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How much could this thing cost to run a year?
$1 million?
$2 million?
Really. The cost of installing a set of traffic lights near Darwin airport.
I really think the govt needs to step in and fund it
Local news for a city as remote as Darwin is a social issue. The govt funds social issues.
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Sky News, SBS and NITV (separately) have Video journalists covering the NT. Not a full bulletin but not totally devoid of coverage outside the ABC and Nine.
ICTV also produce an indigenous news service out of Alice Springs.
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No government is going to fund this on a commercial network, ain’t gonna happen.
The people of the NT already have a dedicated bulletin from the ABC, funded by the government, in turn funded by the tax payer.
It’s unfortunate this has occurred, but given Nine are under no obligation to provide a news service, it’s frankly surprising it lasted as long as it did.
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As well as two commercial radio stations, three community radio stations and a newspaper.
MEAA statement
Statement from the Nine Publishing national house committee
We stand with our colleagues at Nine Darwin, who have been blindsided by management’s decision to decimate the bureau and cut all but one reporter and one camera operator job.
Darwin viewers will now be left without a local 6pm Nine news bulletin, with viewers to get their nightly news from the Queensland newsroom.
Since 1971, Nine Darwin has been an integral part of the Northern Territory’s media landscape, covering everything from Cyclone Tracy on Christmas Day in 1974 to the Bali 5 release, and recent court trials that have shaped our nation, including that of NT police officer Zachary Rolfe.
Territorians cannot be properly served by a newsroom thousands of kilometres away.
We also stand with our colleagues in the Gold Coast newsroom, who have today also learned their newsroom is facing job losses.
These newsrooms have been places to foster young reporters who have gone on to become household names and have worked tirelessly to serve their audiences.
This decision fails to value the role regional media plays in bringing truth and power to Australian audiences and leaves a troubling reporting gap in a large part of our nation.
We call on Nine Broadcasting to rethink its position and stem any further cuts across its network.
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The government can’t fund commercial news bulletins but they can make rules making it mandatory for commercial news bulletins to be shown similar to that of regional Queensland, NSW and Victoria. However any changes will be mostly confined to the Darwin area.
They should call for the government to step in and intervene. However it’s not the government responsibility to fund commercial news bulletins but ths government should make rules similar to the markets of Townsville or Canberra for example to be extended to the Darwin area only.
I didn’t say it would happen. I said it should.
Of all the things govt wastes money on.
I’d be am for ABC News increasing local news across all states and regions and cities. What we have is national bulletins locally hosted with a token 1 or 2 state stories.
Why would the government change things now though? They have let tv networks get away with this for decades.
Also, crocodile tears from the Chief Minister. Pollies are never sad about less media.
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This will continue to happen until the government institutes local news quota laws in all markets, even the metros. Each city should have to air 30 minutes per day of locally produced and relevant news, which is part of their obligation to hold a broadcast licence.
More broadcast obligations and less taxes/licence fees should be the future.
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Now you know why I said this is bad for democracy. Less journalists and news sources to keep pollies to account.
You know what, if they keep choosing to cut service, fine. Reimpose license fees and spectrum fees. Fuck them.
Now to finish it off by turning NTD-8 Darwin into a direct dirty feed (sole repeater) of QTQ-9 Brisbane. All regionalised advertising replaced by that of Brisbane. Darwin is now officially part of the Brisbane TV license area. /s
Watch ABC News skyrocket in the TV ratings now for local news in Darwin. Nine’s Gold Coast bulletin is essentially now on life support, that too will be axed. I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened this year. It also makes me wonder if Seven’s Tasmania bulletin will be axed too? 
Paging @Leo_Puglisi6 to start a local Darwin news bulletin in the wake of this news… 
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The government already issued them news grants to get the bulletin restored during COVID.
What commitment is that, Nine? Rebroadcasting QTQ with some local ads is not a commitment to Darwin. Brisbane is four hours by plane from the Top End - can someone tell me what relevance will the Queensland bulletin have to the local viewers?
It’s also staggering that Nine never tried to get Imparja to show Nine News Darwin on the main Imparja feed, hence ensuring it never reached half of the NT’s population and cutting the product off from an extra stream of ad revenue. There was an alternative universe where Nine could’ve built Nine News Darwin into a bulletin for the entire top half of the Australian continent, which is massively underserved given its strategic importance and the amount of taxpayers’ money spent there.
Overall it again proves Nine just runs stuff on autopilot, usually into the ground, and will happily axe stuff without a second thought about how to make these bulletins sustainable. The audience is absolutely there, and Nine News Darwin actually had a decent reputation and significant sway in the local community, owing to the fact it was one of three or four (depends on your definition) news outlets that covered the territory.
Feel for the staff, who have been let down by management.
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