I reckon there is no future for Channel 9 Darwin anymore. With the removal of the only thing still keeping them going, the end is nigh for the channel as a whole after 54 years of operation. Channel 9 on TV sets in Darwin won’t go away, but it might be soon turned into a direct repeater of QTQ-9 Brisbane with no more Darwin advertising. A complete dirty feed of Brisbane, with Brisbane ads. To just show QTQ-9 Brisbane with Darwin advertising inserted over the top is just simply faking a commitment to Darwin.
You’re faking it, Nine. You know you want to try and get outta the NT, you’re just not telling us that. You’re simply telling lies here.
Agreed. Very much little to no NT news on the metro bulletins these days. Nine saying they’re committed to the NT and then just showing news from the Sunshine State is just simply faking a commitment to Darwin. Better off just changing the advertising feed to Brisbane, so then viewers never watch Nine Darwin at 6pm again. Sell your local office and get out of Darwin.
There will be alot more job losses 100% - there is a large sales and administrative team at NTD which would be 35-40 people including the previous news team numbers. Are these roles even needed anymore considering sales will be going down severely by this?
NT Government will be spending very minimal on advertising with this station moving forward I can imagine.
And I reckon a large number of local advertisers in the Darwin area will be boycotting NTD over this decision in protest, which in turn will negatively affect Nine Darwin’s ad revenue. Local businesses will find out that 9News Darwin has been axed, and then they’ll boycott, better instead putting their money towards advertising on SCA-7 Darwin (which still has some form of local news as noodle updates fed into ad breaks) and DTD-10 Darwin.
Nine Darwin is now on life support. Sooner rather than later, Nine will opt to save even more money by just killing the local NTD-8 feed after 54 years. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if that actually happened this year. After all, without the local news, Nine Darwin now just means absolutely nothing. They can still have one reporter and one camera operator in the NT, but there’s really no need anymore to have a local feed of NTD-8 Darwin. I mean, it’s had a really good run in Darwin over its 54-year lifespan, but now its time is officially up. It too will join Griffith and Mount Gambier/Riverland and will be turned into a plain sole repeater (dirty feed) of QTQ-9 Brisbane, without any Darwin advertising at all.
So, go on Nine, save even more of your money, do it. Turn NTD-8 Darwin into a full-time dirty feed of QTQ-9 Brisbane without any Darwin ad insertions. I dare you.
But the two products are very different. Nine shined a light on community and local crime stories, issues with the local council etc. ABC is more investigative and also filled with international news as it’s the dedicated bulletin for the overseas relays.
I hope ABC steps up and fills this gap after the loss of Nine.
Same in Canberra - the amount and depth of local content on the 7pm bulletin is usually pathetic.
The claim below by the Mayor that “ABC News can cover the gap very effectively” remains to be seen. In order to do so, they’ll need to invest more $$$ and rethink their bulletin rundown - I doubt they will.
I concede that a reintroduction of a 7 news Darwin bulletin is extremely unlikely but not impossible.
I also concede that the government is unlikely to take any action forcing commercial stations to provide local news bulletin in the Darwin area but I reckon if they can do that to Townsville and Canberra they should do the same to the Darwin area
Well the local federal MP of Solomon has a job to do if he wants to be reelected. He could lobby his government to set out similar rules to those of the Townsville and Canberra area to manadate local content from the commercial stations in the Darwin area. But i have my doubts they will do that.
At least the Howard government had the courage to act on the outcry of the public in the Canberra and North Queensland area when their local news bulletins were axed in 2001. Now the ball is in the current federal government’s court. Time will tell.
