He seems like a lovely bloke. Interesting that Nine didn’t approach him.
He was really good, IMO. I remember a cyclone was causing concern a few years ago, and Byrne basically said everyone was over-reacting and not to worry, and it turned out he was right. He actually did a history segment on Seven Local News for about 3 years or so, after his retirement from Win News.
This is the video from March 2012.
Video of Peter Byrne - Angry Weather Man
“more unprofessional claptrap on what they portray as breakfast television” with their alleged forecast of 200 kph winds for north Queensland.
Peter Byrne does Rewind segments weekly on 7 Local News. One tonight was on the Global Financial Crisis.
From what I can see - apart from obvious problems like Sydney centric bus stories, static backdrops, Venessa etc - another problem with these 3 new SNSW, VIC and now QLD videos - is promotion and marketing.
I’ve basically seen the same rather generic launch promos rolled out across 10 markets now - all extremely generic - even featuring suburban sydney shots - and now selling anything local, community minded or local talent. They feel like promos made 1000km away in Sydney because they are.
7 News QLD promos feel local, feel reactive to the news and fell current and topical. 7 News gold Coast / 9 News Gold Coast run :whats happening in your suburbs, shoot video, email us, stay connected" type promos.
WIN runs promos saying they re part of the community.
Nine feels completely like an outsider - and it is.
SCA 9 is running 4 month old promos with updates basically, and just playing promos with old stories and tagging them out.
They need to really update their promo game and be producing and airing promos that point to what is on the news TONIGHT,
They probably need to hire a dedicated promo producer for each SNSW, VIC and QLD who can produce daily 20, 15 and 10 second promos for the state wide bulletin. And add local tags and VO to each. The promos would largely have to cover statewide content. Trying to do localised versions for each of the regions would be a huge star stretch an at least need 2 promo producers in each market.
But daily topical promos would be a start.
Absolutely!
Townsville’s new bulletin launches in 5 days, and I’d say 90% of the city has no idea it’s even coming.
The promo that they’ve got is barely even being utilised.
Tonight the State of Origin was on, now at an educated guess, that would be the most watched programme on Nine all year in this area I’d say (especially tonight, being a decider), yet the promo only aired once during the entire SOO match, and that was at the end of the night during the post-match coverage.
I’ve heard the promo air on the Hit radio station a few times also, but it lacks context and I think is probably more confusing to listeners than helpful.
Along with that, the promo airing on TV and Radio doesn’t give viewers any reason why they should tune into this service over the well-established service from 7 News.
I saw on Samantha Heathwood’s instagram account a photo of her here in Townsville with a camera filming her. Why is that not being used in a promo?
Any Townsville local would recognise the location instantly and know from there that this is a new service for the local area.
Also, unlike what happened in NSW, the “Local News Headlines” are not making any mention at all of the 9 News launch coming up
I think this is where SCA needs to step in.
Nine is doing the news, and cutting promos.
But SCA needs to be responsible for running the spots and getting out an doing the PR in each market.
I mean it’s not the Nine Network in Sydney pushing local 9 news promos in perth - its the local station.
The most Nine can do is produce those promos. It’s up to SCA to advertise on TV, radio, social media, etc. Put it into all primetime Local News Headlines immediately so that viewers can be informed about it on a regular basis leading up to each launch.
One thing that Nine could do differently is on the 4pm and 6pm Sunday bulletins (and maybe the Monday afternoon bulletin) note the regional bulletins launch in the sign-off before each launches.
4pm
And that’s all from Nine Live Queensland for now. Join Andrew and Melissa at 6pm, and for viewers in [market] join Samantha Heathwood for Nine Local News at 6pm.
6pm
And that’s Nine News for tonight. For our viewers in [market] join Samantha Heathwood from tomorrow night for Nine Local News at 6pm. Goodnight.
I see what you did there…
It’s evolved as much as the regional 9News presentation has. 
(I realise you’re not being serious but) if Nine would had actually fixed up some of the issues raised instead of replicating across-the-board the same lowest-common-denominator crap (presentation, story selection, etc.), I’m sure there’d be different/better comments here.
(I understood the cramped space in Sydney but if I recall correctly that excuse doesn’t apply to Melbourne or Brisbane.)
Another photo of the Nine News Regional Victoria set, via Peter Hitchener (@phitchener9) on Snapchat.
While the presentation, etc. of these bulletins is something we’ve all complained about for a while, a great by-product of having them is the expanded coverage of “more significant” stories into 9’s national bulletins.
I’ve already seen a story from the Cairns market featured today on Today and ACA, that I’m sure wouldn’t have even rated a mention without the 9 News FNQ bulletin being set up.
It may also have something to do with the Queensland Cabinet sitting in Cairns this week as well with all the associated political reporters in FNQ at the moment, even Ten have a team in Cairns this week.
I doubt it would be related in this specific case. The story was about a pizza shop worker who was held up with a gun.
Last night was my final night in Cairns and I was really surprised at what my parents asked me. When the FNQ News bulletin came on they said, “About this, where is Melissa Downes, do you know her?” I went on to explain that the news they used to get, they still will, just with FNQ news added in. To this, they responded, “We don’t like the Far North Queensland news. We now watch the ABC and Ten at 5.” I told them that they will still get Darren and Alison on the weekend.
To me, I think this sums up the situation of thousands of average regional Nine viewers on the east coast. There seems to have been a significant lack of promotion and explanation of what is happening with the switch. And, the fact that they actually knew Melissa’s name surprised me, as there is no V/O, name super or name referenced in the closer throughout any bulletin. I daresay they remember Melissa from when she was a reporter for Nine Queensland 10 years ago. I suppose, like NSW and VIC, viewers have watched these teams for years and have become to know and trust them and the idea of replacing the metro bulletin in its entirety, still puzzles me.
I messaged Nine News Far North Queensland via Twitter on Wednesday night, about the weather issues raised, here is what I said:
And they seemed to have listened:
I dip in and out of this thead but the biggest issue to me over these bulletins seems to be that a lot of the audience were entirely happy to be getting the cap-city bulletins and have no desire for a localised version? Did Nine misread the market(s)?
Yes and no. I think they got the model wrong but I think the market needs more localism. I think a half hour local News, followed by the state bulletin for 30 mins would work better. They probably wouldn’t need as many local windows as effectively it could be stacked with a story from one area followed by another. Cairns, Townsville, Ayr (near Townsville), Mackay, Cairns, Townsville, etc. I think win got the initial formula right but these composite bulletins are something these areas haven’t really seen before (a lot of these areas still had the state based bulletins, alongside their local bulletin, even back in the sunshine, QTV, etc days.
That’s fantastic! Great that they listened.
That should fix up the issues we identified with the weather segment!
Of course long time viewing habits meant that many would’ve been accustomed to the traditional capital city bulletin for decades (Nine still calls their Brisbane bulletin Queensland right?). However, as many had said on this forum, Nine and SCA have been lacking in promotion. We all know that Nine is capable of doing decent promos (case in point: Nine News Sydney), however Nine’s promos about their regional bulletins still leave quite a bit to be desired. Nothing was mentioned about their experience or how they stand out compared to Seven. It was all disappointing really.
EDIT: Maybe they didn’t want to run their promos like Nine News QLD for fears of viewers turning away from the service.
