But Darwin has less but Geelong doesn’t get Local News.
Darwin is 3000km from the nearest major city as opposed to less than 100km for Geelong…
Its also a capital city in its own right. Not really an accurate comparison.
Nine could just do a couple of Geelong stories and it’d be fine. Geelong is less than an hour from Melbourne, it’s basically a suburb. It’s a western equivalent of Frankston in terms of geography.
Even could put Geelong in the weather with an outlook (like Sydney/West).
They do that for Ipswich here in the 'bane.
Some total trash in the first block of Nine News Canberra tonight. They should seriously consider leading with the local block. “Welcome to Nine news, first up, your local headlines”.
Mackay’s dodgy lighthouse backdrop is no more
I’ve only been to Mackay once, and I’m not familiar with local landmarks, but I thought they could find something more suitable for a backdrop than an aerial city shot that looks VERY generic.
The new backdrop image for Mackay’s bulletin is definitely an improvement on the dodgy lighthouse photo used last week IMO!
Also, I wonder if anyone managed to see tonight’s launch of Nine News Central Queensland?
The mackay backdrop looks much better. I can only hope the central Queensland one looks good as well. I haven’t seen the central Queensland one yet but the social media accounts for 9 news central Queensland are up and running.
I caught a glimpse of the central Queensland backdrop from a source. Here it is
If you’re from Rocky you can tell it’s Rocky but otherwise it’s a strange angle of the city to go for… not as bad as I was expecting after the Lighthouse in Mackay last week but still…
Geelong doesn’t need a standalone bulletin.
The city is well served by all 4 networks, with the ABC having a bureau there. It is simply too close to Melbourne.
All bulletins - especially those of 7 and 9 regularly feature stories on Geelong - crime, house fires and arguably the local council there gets more attention than any other in the Melbourne licence area - second only to the City of Melbourne.
Geelong is also considered “heartland” to 7 & 9 news. It’s demographics are no different to western Sydney which is strongly targeted by the Sydney stations.
For anything, a bureau in Geelong would be feasible and I’d expect 9 or 7 to do so in a few years if not sooner.
It’s interesting to compare the placement of stories between the regional and metro bulletins. The piece on the teenager stranded in the sea off the coast of Queensland made it into the first bloc in the NSW regional bulletin, but it didn’t make it into the Sydney bulletin until after sport. The regional bulletin also continuing to source full reports from America’s ABC.
Interesting that with 21 local newsrooms or so across Australia now - Nine is still filling these regional bulletins with US reports from ABC America.
Surely an expanded weather, or a “News from Around Australia” segment with vision roll would be better than running meaningless US content.
Here is another picture of the Central Queensland backdrop. I couldn’t find or see any video or picture of the 9 news central opener or weather yet.
I have to disagree with you; (for 9News Canberra/Sthn NSW) replacing irrelevant Sydney local stories (including a bunch that started the bulletin tonight & after the first break again, argh!!!) with irrelevant local stories from elsewhere in the country doesn’t fix the problem.
International news is preferred, at least if they choose stories with some interest, and they can also play a full report for a story that may have just got the short voice-over only thing on the Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane bulletins.
The problem is of course that an hour feels too long for a “local” news bulletin. The local stories about crime that don’t make a state bulletin but suddenly make it alongside the latest from the White House just jar.
Though Win’s production values are much poorer than Nine’s local news (for Victoria at least), the bulletin is much pacier and doesn’t feel like a chore to watch.
Nine should do local half hour news and then a half hour national/world, like Prime7.
WIN’s Southern NSW and ACT news are a chore to watch, and Nine’s are only slightly better.
It’s interesting; I figure a bit of competition could actually be what Win needed for Victoria given there hasn’t been any (apart from Albury) for 20+ years. There’s (attempts at) anchor banter, decent graphics and sharper packages, which certainly wasn’t the case even two years ago.
Not saying it’s amazing, mind you, it’s just good to see some competition after so long. Makes everyone a little better.