Nine News Southern NSW/ACT would be quite a mouthful though! 
2 Likes
Thinking about the regional 9News reporters, hopefully the rumours about WIN getting back the Nine affiliation donāt eventuate.
I wonder how much longer the negotiations will go (how close to the end of the current affiliation contract). It must be quite stressful for those potentially impacted.
4 Likes
I agree. But on the flipside, youāve also got WIN News reporters whoād be hoping for a return to their former longtime affiliate and respectable ratings for the bulletin(s) they work on.
Unfortunately I suspect there may be some local news services axed after July 1 regardless of which way the affiliation agreements go, the big question is whether itāll be WIN or SCA Nineās bulletins that are affected.
3 Likes
There are no positives here - WIN will likely axe more bulletins even if it wins back the Nine affiliation, and there will be a plethora of out of work journos.
The best outcome for regional media diversity - and viewers - is Nine and SCA staying together.
10 Likes
Because when youāre watching news from Bathurst and you live 515km away in Eden - itās not ālocalā.
8 Likes
There will always be a drive to the bottom on costs - but thereās no doubt a Nine affiliation brings WIN news a LOT more viewers - which could save some bulletins. Bruce learned the hard way (heās never been a good programmer) than viewers donāt change channels to watch WIN news.
Nine is going to drive a hard bargain. Could they force WIN into an NBN format, where itās just the news branded as WIN? Will Bruce be satisfied with a 5.30pm timeslot? (I canāt imagine Nine allowing ACA to be bumped to accommodate local news).
For SCA - Ten has already got their ālocal insertā mechanism āsortedā - could part of a new SCA/Ten deal be local news done for the regions in a similar way? They could dust off the Adelaide studio if the economics were there.
4 Likes
Unfortunately I think 9 News Local (at least the smaller markets) will be impacted either way.
I think a full news service produced by 9 will be one of the first causalities if SCA canāt afford what 9 are asking.
4 Likes
viewers would barely notice if local news disappeared from SCA Nine
2 Likes
Nine has already declined SCAās offer - but as weāve seen over the past 10 years, anything is possible.
No matter what happens, SCA will need to produce some sort of local content. Now they have bulldozed the network hub in Canberra, it only leaves studios in Tasmania. Might be a little full down there to squeeze in another 40 noodle updates a day.
2 Likes
if and it a big if. 9 goes with WIN, i cant see 9 saying sure lets give up the 6pm news hour for local news. So possibilties are 9 stays with SCA - no change. or 9 goes with WIN and WIN cans there 6pm local news for a 530 timeslot. Cant see Bruce being happy about that. Also i earmarked this happening months ago and people laughed
1 Like
Probably because those āin the knowā told you WIN had secured the 9 affiliation as far back as October last year, which we all know was never the case and would breach contracts.
These ātalksā happen every affiliation renewal. These headlines have been getting recycled for over a decade. No doubt it will happen again in 2026.
3 Likes
Would Nine really care, and why would they?
Look at the piss poor presentation of the 9News regional bulletins Nine were supplying to SCA, and now these so-called āLocalā bulletins full of non-local stories.
If Nine were to go back to WIN, I wouldnāt be surprised if ACA got bumped to a secondary channel & 9News was put on a delay.
What do people here think the chances are of the affiliations swapping back this year?
Iām guessing 10%. Maybe 15%.
4 Likes
i would say it would happen . it would make less stressfor sca9 and esp the so called so called 9 news local which isnt really local at all. 9 news melbourne rates well for sca9 so im sure it would be somwhere in the afflication agreemnt that it would have to be kept at 6pm. dont forget starting today there are negotiaons happening with win and 9. and we all know that win news rates better then 9 news local does anyways.
I would say higher. Nine has scaled back its news service to SCA significantly - one may suspect this is in preparation for ending the contract.
1 Like
I would be surprised. Nine was VERY prescriptive with SCA on the brand offer they get from Nine (including naming and complete programming control).
My guess is Nine offers WIN 5.30pm for local news or they do their own thing 6-7pm. Nine made a big deal about ACA returning to 7pm on SCA, so I would bet penny to a pound they (and the viewers) would want to retain it.
1 Like
Because they know SCA are amateurs in the tv business. Outside Tassie and Spencer Gulf, where they have heritage, they are out of their depth. They have no interest in running a proper tv outfit.
Could you just imagine the news they would output if they had to do it themselves?
This all doesnāt matter, money will be what decides what happens.
Nine News Local recovered on Monday to its best result since being shunted to 9 Go! during the tennis.
5 Likes
This was always my problem with the name in QLD.
A viewer in Cairns could see a story from Caloundra, 1608 km away on a bulletin called ālocalā.
That distance is nearly equivalent to someone in Brisbane watching ālocalā news and seeing stories about Melbourne.
5 Likes
Youāre right, SC has an amateurish approach to television, but they have been at it since the TV8 days of the early 90s in Bendigo.
It will be in the best interest of Nine and WIN to maximise audience (obviously), so WIN will need to demonstrate minimal damage to current ratings, wherever they propose to put their local news webcast. ACA has found a strong audience at 7pm on the main station, could WIN local news reduce that if they bump ACA? In Canberra, for example, they would be up against the locally produced ABC news, which has a strong audience indeed. Bruce has an ego thing about owning a station in the Capital.
A realignment with Nine would be an opportunity for WIN to reimagine the 6-7 slot. If I were them, Iād do a a WIN produced national news from 6-6.35, then local news 6.35-7. This cuts the demands of a full 22min local bulletin and limits audience switchover at 6.30, as you shift the end of the ānationalā bulletin. It would be similar to how 7 Adelaide and Perth did Today Tonight for years.
Also means theyāre not up against Prime for local news if WIN still competes with them in any markets (Iāve lost track of which newsrooms WIN has shut tbh)
1 Like
I think if the affiliation swap of 2016 does get reversed after July 1, the schedule of WIN (in markets they still have local bulletins, of course) will be more or less what it is on SCA Nine at the momentā¦just with WIN News at 5.30pm instead of Nine News Local.
Nine will still want ACA on at 7pm and probably Overton/Hitch/Andrew & Melissa at 6pm as well. A different timeslot for Hot Seat is less of an issue, since that show is currently scheduled in different timeslots on stations the network actually owns and operates.
I wouldāve thought Bruceās main āpride and joyā is the Illawarra market/station, although Iāve got no doubt WIN News Canberra would be the last bulletin remaining in production which didnāt pre-date aggregation.
Nope, thereās not a single market where both Prime7 and WIN run full local bulletins these days.
1 Like