Nine News QLD has had some minor changes that I’ve seen tonight (may have been changed earlier - but this is the first bulletin I’ve been home to watch all week).
The bulletin opened with 2 more major/interesting stories from within the Regional viewing area (including a live cross) - one story from FNQ and one from the Sunshine Coast. I felt this was far, far better than opening with one (normally) Brisbane based story like they previously did, as it’s a bit more relevant and allows us to hear about really major events affecting the state’s regional areas.
This then followed the 5-minute local window, where they’ve finally removed the audio sting that plays during the Fuel check … I always hated the hard/sudden drop of it when the local window ended. It flowed much more smoothly tonight without the audio sting.
Article in the Townsville Bulletin today about local news ratings.
Without posting actual figures, it says 7 News is leading with 59% audience share, WIN News is second with 25% audience share and Nine News is last with 16% audience share in the most recent survey
.wonder how nine news westen victoria is doing againt win news . i currently dont like there current format where they have the melbourne section and national section then have the local news 15 mins in . why cant they swap it around and have the local news section 1st ??? wonder how people have drooped watching nine news and switched back on win because of this??? i have messaged them but no response i can grantee that most people dont reallty care as much as whats happening in melbourne and care more about whats happening locally
I’m not really surprised that Seven is the runaway favourite in the Townsville/North Queensland market, especially with Rob Brough & Joanne Desmond having presented the bulletin for more than a decade (probably closer to 15 years?) now. What does surprise me is how wide the gap between WIN and Nine seems to be…probably a sign that North Queenslanders would rather watch “full” half hour local bulletins rather than hour long composite news services?
What isn’t known is what Nine News from Brisbane used to rate in that timeslot. I wouldn’t be surprised if SC9 has lost audience share with the introduction of the composite bulletin (though that is just a guess). From the numbers it looks like Nine is going backwards as well - though when they say “in our first month” perhaps that included a week of Nine News Brisbane.
The first few weeks would also be inflated by people checking out the new offering before going back to their usual bulletin, so therefore wouldn’t be as accurate for a long-term comparison.
It’s still early doors. SC9 has nearly doubled its 6-6.30 audience in Canberra this year, but that took six months (10,862 in Feb to 18,756 in July).
This is a great case though, as Seven has a very high quality bulletin for regional Qld - it may prove to Nine they will need to do better than a green screen in a broom cupboard to lure viewers.
Just got home and turned the TV on and the local window of 9 News was just starting.
It completely fucked up for about 10 seconds.
Jono started reading out the first story, then the screen went black mid-sentence and Jono was mid-sentence again, but about an entirely different story.
Then suddenly back from black screen to Jono continuing to read exactly from where he was when the black screen appeared.
It was something along the lines of:
“Youths around Townsville are breaking locks and gaining entry into CBD high-rise buildings to take dangerous selfie photos from … (black screen) complaints to the ombudsmen about … (Jono reappears) the top of roofs…”.
Then to make up for the stuff up - the fuel prices graphic at the end of the local window remained on screen for about 20-30 seconds.
The AWU police raids should have been the first story in Canberra, I think.
At the end of the AWU live cross -
Kate Creedon: … the AWU says this is an extraordinary breach of police resources.
Vanessa O’Hanlon: It certainty is.
O’Hanlon is now giving her opinion on news stories? What! … And it’s all still too clunky. Why can’t Nine get these bulletins right when they do so well with the Sydney news.