Even the COVID-era ad break inserts they made for Darwin news would be better than nothing. Very sad 
1 Like
I don’t get why they don’t do weather updates - those are pretty easy to make as sponsored content to pay for it.
Otherwise, Darwin happens to be a capital city, but otherwise it is such a tiny market that it has no hope of sustaining any level of news on a commercial basis.
5 Likes
Perhaps Richard Wilkins can do entertainment for Today from the Darwin studio.
5 Likes
This would’ve helped.
Then give up the license. No CKNX-style reusing of the channel to relay another station, you go dark. But that won’t happen because those in power are that far up the media’s arse they can see out their mouth.
I don’t think Seven would have any plans to start a Darwin/NT service. That’s money out of Kerry’s pocket. The NT will become a living example of what TV was like in the old Soviet bloc - state media being the only TV news. If it wasn’t for ARN, there would be no independent media.
This is bad news.
As I said, Seven might have the cash, but they won’t do it.
There needs to be another review into regional media and the adequacy of what exists now. You can say you’ve got social media and independent sources etc…but would you entirely trust them? Or rely on them in major events?
It’s not just about having the cash to establish the bulletin, it’s being able to sell advertising space during the bulletin and having the ongoing funds to support the bulletin long-term.
Seven’s M.O. is half-hour local bulletins as a companion to metro/national news. If a Darwin bulletin ever were to happen, it would likely take this form.
1 Like
Yes though obviously long gone now.
Audience shifts of the past decade suggest they do, mostly the younger generations.
How many of them are going to be there long term? How many of them can you trust? How many of them aren’t astroturfing for someone else? How many of them aren’t going to be AI with no oversight?
No one has answered these questions. It has happened in the past to some extent, sure, but it’ll get worse.
The younger generations need these answered.
Despite ABC providing a local bulletin it’s still not catering to local audiences unlike Nine.
Nine provided a service that ABC doesn’t have (unless you listen to radio). ABC has very minimal reporting on local issues, councils etc. Most stories published on the NT News don’t make the cut on the NT bulletin. You could almost consider the 2 bulletins as a 90 minute broadcast for NT previously - Nine covered the stories of local interest and ABC focuses on more in-depth investigative stories NT wide.
I visited NT recently and it is very obvious now that there is a lack of local content being shown across all the networks it’s a shame.
I think the Nine News Regional format in 2017 and the suspension over COVID has impacted the outcome of the local bulletin success. Local advertisers/viewers tuned out years ago and clearly didn’t regain the traction with advertising sales as it previously had.
2 Likes
It doesn’t matter because the choice has been made as in any free democratic western nation. It is not the government’s role to bankroll commercial media. It already invests, very heavily too, every year through the ABC and SBS which may cover the gaps depending on what it determines.
They have. Remember the handouts it got in COVID? The cuts to license fees and spectrum fees? They got it because they bitched and whinged. And because our so-called “democratic” government must kow-tow to these village idiots, they got what they wanted. Both sides listen to, it’s not a Labor vs Coalition thing, it’s a deadshit being a deadshit thing.
And they keep fucking up the funding for that too. I reckon if the commercial networks want to ditch local news, fine. 25% of all revenue, minimum, automatically goes to the ABC to fund regional news. No ifs, no buts. Call it a forfeit.
Time Nine et. al, were brought into line. They’ve had a cosy little racket for way too long. Do the right thing, or fuck off the broadcast spectrum.
Yet it continues to do so, either directly with funding or indirectly by favourable licence fee terms (amongst other things). The government doesn’t want to rock the boat
Unfortunately the days of the adage of the free broadcasters being on “public spectrum” so they need to provide a service including children’s tv, seven nights of news and other local programming and pay fees on top is a very 20th century view of the situation. The licence to print money that FTA used to be 30-40 years ago is well and truly over. Every dollar you increase in costs will need to see a dollar cut elsewhere in other programming, there will be no winners and frankly I would rather FTA continue than have pretty much no access to content due to the rise of subscriptions that streaming has delivered.
If I was any way inclined to pay for tv, I’d have subscribed to Foxtel many years ago. It’s not happening.
The long awaited return 
3 Likes
The announcement was made last week. There will be a dedicated Video Journalist in Darwin.
14 Likes
So they’re just replacing this role finally?
2 Likes
Does this mean we’ll be seeing something similar to COVID-era Darwin news (opt-outs replacing the Brisbane news ad break), or plain old noodle updates?
3 Likes
Oh god please no! 
I would rather see these 2.5 minute bulletins replace ad breaks entirely in the 6pm hour. It’s weird when there’s 9News Queensland on in Darwin with local Darwin ads during ad breaks. I’d say remove the Darwin ads during the QLD news ad breaks and insert 9News Darwin in their places instead.