Out of curiosity, given your interest in South Coast news, did/do you have an aerial pointed south at your Sydney residence to pick up the local news from WIN and SC Nine?
funny you mention that , i stayed in central Sydney in January, and watched WIN Wollongong and SCA Wollongong, so would assume most people could watch
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Nine News Darwin is now doing news opt outs during Nine News Late - great idea.
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Yes, many people in my part of Sydney have aerials pointed to Wollongong as well as to Sydney (myself included).
Some examples of Sydney + Wollongong aerial setups nearby me:
Speaking of Central Sydney, I had mentioned previously that I recalled that TVs in Westfield Sydney were tuned to WIN instead of Nine back in the '90s.
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Also, I thought Iād mention that many of the clips shown on the local bulletin were repeated on the Sydney bulletin, including the interview with the elderly woman at Batemans Bay, the kangaroos in the snow and the submerged vehicle.
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Soā¦. is the only reason for the new format cost? And cost due to the Covid-19 restrictions?
The promos for it still really confuse me āNine News is going bigger.ā To me this just all seems much smaller.
I kinda believe itās just as easy to do what they were doing before; prerecorded segments for local areas, then a live feed to national stories. Definitely for Victoria though.
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Iāve been able to get the Wollongong stations in most areas of Sydney Iāve lived, even as far north as Chatswood. Reception, at times, hasnāt always been reliable.
Have had the local Wollongong bulletins set to series record in recent years. If Iām home in time to catch Overton and Iām not doing anything else I like to watch WIN News in the ad breaks and during sport. If Iām busy I only watch the reports that really interest me.
I used to skip through the first segment of the one hour Illawarra bulletin to see what stories they covered. I always thought the quality of those SC9 local reports was top notch and forced the WIN reporters to up their game. Iāve only ever had an issue with presentation elements of those bulletins. It has been great to watch James Wilson, Rebecca Davis and now Kaitlan Tukukino develop and match it with their metro counterparts. They donāt feel out of place at all when they appear on the Sydney bulletins.
Iām interested to see how these new bulletins develop and how it effects the reporting given they now need to appeal to a wider audience. Canāt say Iāll watch every day but Iāll regularly check out the Nine News Illawarra Facebook page.
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The first story on RVIC (thanks @soundsdifferent for the cap) reported on a company in Ballarat set to mass produce a locally-created ventilator design. A relevant story to the whole state, and it even included a bit of Dan Andrews encouraging locally-produced medical supplies. But the middle chunk of the report inserted mentions of Ballarat businesses that were closed for deep cleaning or COVID scares.
Theyāre receiving relevant information from local reporters but it needs to be curated effectively. The Ballarat reporter can still submit the ventilator story but the business closures can instead be submitted as a short script which can be used for a 30 second studio-read piece, or be collated into a single report with other closure information from other regions, or not used if thereās nowhere to put it.
Same story is reported but it removes the hyperlocal framing and makes it more digestable for viewers outside of the relevant area. Instead of a Gippsland viewer going āugh I donāt care about businesses closing in Ballarat, I want my newsā their attention is on āoh cool, Ballarat is making ventilators for Victoriaā.
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The map needs a few more names as I can still see a bit of NSW.
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As @CTC7-9-10 said somewhere up there, these bulletins look like theyāre filling local content requirements with the least pre-production possible. As such, itās a stacking nightmare. Thereās very little flow other than COVID-19 being a rolling theme. Very little breathing room, too - sure, itās live, but breaking news will be impossible to cover.
Gavin is being stretched thin with the number of tapings he has to do, so each of them do have to be short - the NBN forecasts are his main priority.
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It could actually be easier to put all the noodle updates in one live bulletin and bash them
Out across all local regions - rather than tape 12-15 x regions X 60 second noodle updates X 3-4 times a day - code them, load them in server, schedule, traffic, airā¦
This is probably less man power therefore cheaper
Genius solution!
So then, shorten millimetres to āmmā?
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What Nine has to be careful of is actually introducing a turn-off factor with a poor quality programme. Viewers wonāt watch rubbish, no matter if they live in Dubbo or Drummoyne. There isnāt much reason for people to tune-in to Nine Local, so the best they can hope for is viewers staying on from the lead-in programme.
Nine would be better off incorporating the Central West into NBN News - with the opt-out window arrangement.
Then a āNine News South Eastā edition at 5.30. Live for the first 9 mins for āregional newsā such as a bus crash on the Hume Hwy with a live cross; then pre-rec 9 mins (Illa, CBR, Riverina) of local news and sport, then 3 mins recorded local weather.
It would take a little more thought and planning, but I wouldnāt have though extra staff would be required.
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Has anyone noticed whether the primetime weather updates have been running on the last two nights. I am yet to notice one.
The primetime updates have switched to be statewide compared to the previous local versions.
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Bit hard - the Central West is a different license area to Northern NSW!
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The licence area thing is a non issue - Nine could have the regional SCA bulletin produced in Newcastle if it wanted to.
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Trueā¦but you do think Nine would do that?
What would be the possible reasons these bulletins Donāt has openers?
(For example in Sydney they used to do 3 openers, now they do none)
Is the staff staff stretched too thin now?
The EP, Director of Regional news feels a cold open out of Hot Seat is better for audience retention?
Iām trying to think of the practical reasons?
When these bulletins started 2-3 years ago they had no opene. Within a week they did customized opens for each market
Now we are back to no opens
Logic?
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The Central West is a different license area to Riverina, but currently sharing a simulcast.
My idea was to do Central West as an additional opt-out as NBN does for its existing markets.
All the staff has been added in Sydney.
Your suggestion would probably un-streamline quite a few things and NBN would be staunchly against it unless they were given some extra head count