Nine News Local

Whoever she is she should get that radioactive glow checked out.

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Wow, apparently a major Australian TV network canā€™t get simple greenscreen done good.

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I doubt 9 will put anymore money into the product than they have to, unless they actually take ownership of the television assets in the markets they have a regional news product inā€¦

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No opening headlines in NQ tonight.
It almost looked like SC crossed to the feed too late (even though that wouldnā€™t have been the case).

The Hot Seat theme played outā€¦ then we faded in to the end of the opener with VO saying: ā€œws North Queenslandā€

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I have a feeling someone in Sydney is scheduling stories to appear on the regional QLD 9 News facebook pages.

Iā€™ve noticed since daylight saving started last month, that the pre-recorded local stories have been getting posted on the local Facebook page between 5:40pm - 6:00pm, before the news has even aired.

Previously, before DST started, we would see the local stories of the day posted between 6:40pm - 7:00pm usually.

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Inadvertently copying News Corpā€™s policy of digital first?

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How hard can it be for Nine to re-voice stories for the regional bulletins?

Iā€™ve noticed them using a lot more Brisbane and Sydney based stories on the regional QLD bulletin recently, but theyā€™re just a carbon copy of the version that aired on their respective metro bulletins.

Tonight we had a story about something ā€œat Slacks Creekā€.
Last week I saw a story that flashed up a map with ā€œBrisbane, Gold Coast, Logan, Caboolture, Ipswichā€ all featured on it, but no where else.

Even Sam and Jono have been using the same scripts as the Brisbane bulletin that really shouldnā€™t be ā€¦ Iā€™ve heard Sam recently reading something out about ā€œsoutheast familiesā€¦ā€ when referring to one of their ā€œspecial investigationsā€

Itā€™s no wonder 9 News is coming in 3rd behind WIN News and 7 News in Regional QLD when theyā€™re making the majority of the bulletin come across as so heavily Brisbane-centric.

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It defeats the purpose of having a dedicated regional bulletin, if it continues Nine should just go back to putting the Brisbane news out statewide and just have a local news window somewhere, which is what I originally suggested for these regional news services.

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ā€œ9 News Regional Tour officially underway - kicking off in Cairnsā€

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Does that mean they are doing the 6pm bulletins live on location?

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My guess is that Sam & Jono are only in town to film some promos, but I do think the regional editions of Nine News would benefit from having a week of on-location bulletins from various locations around the viewing area.

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Have a week on location in the Darwin studioā€¦ heckā€¦ make it full time there :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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If Nine can demonstrate they are getting more people to turn on their sets at 6pm, there is a business case for more investment - particularly if they hover between 1 and 2 in the ratings.

If a few tweaks can cement them at number 1, I donā€™t see why they wouldnā€™t. Even a 50% cut of the spoils is decent enough to evoke a commercial interest for Nine in having a quality product that people continue watch. A few adjustments to the set and camera set up is peanuts for a bulletin that goes out to over a million people.

Let me put it this way, the stake Nine has in the SNSW bulletin (which goes out to 1.44 million people) is much higher than the stake they have in the Gold Coast bulletin (which goes out to around 580k). Not only is ā€œhalfā€ of the SNSW market bigger than GC, more homes are watching TV at 6pm so per capita the SNSW bulletin is ā€˜more valuableā€™.

In a roundabout way Iā€™m trying to say that there is a business case for Nine to care just as much, if not more, about their SCA regional bulletins as their fully owned GC bulletin. And, to be fair, Adelaide is not much further ahead.

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SNSW would be a more expensive spend because they need 12 journalists (3 each in 4 sub markets), Gold Coast probably has half that number?

And as you said, Nine only gets 50% return, but they have pay for 100% of the costs under the terms of the deal.

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ā€œStoryā€ (to use the term loosely) on 9 News Regional tonight about some new unlimited data internet plans.

Story was by Brisbane reporter Brittney Kleyn, but thankfully tonight seemed to reworded for regional audiences rather than Brisbane.

There was a brief segment with a QLD map where the reporter said ā€œin Regional Queensland, the biggest data uses are in Townsville and in Buderim on the Sunshine Coastā€ with no mentions of Brisbane.

I doubt she would have said that on the Brisbane bulletin, so it looks like theyā€™ve listened to my advice and reworded it.

Good to see!

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Not 100% as wages are not the only cost. SCA9 journalists are housed in SCA buildings - so no deskspace costs for Nine. Gold Coast has a dedicated office and studio which is a cost borne exclusively by Nine.

We are splitting hairs here but you are right, there are more field journalists working on SNSW9. But the bulletin only has one presenter and no dedicated weather presenter (sharing with NBN) while GC has two presenters, sport and weather. So six-of-one half-a-dozen of the other is my round-out on this because GC9 simply has a smaller audience given their timeslot (if you look at dollars spent vs viewer actuals).

My point was, there is a clear commercial incentive for the Nine Network to keep ratings high on the SCA bulletins (Number 1 in Cbr at 6pm from last count). Gold Coast is their only locally produced non-metro bulletin, so youā€™ll forgive this being used as a comparator.

One could argue the level of investment in a bulletin that goes to a market of nearly 1.5 million people (more than double GC) should attract roughly the same level of investment in the studio and cameras, given that these are one-off cap ex investments. I mean, SC in Tasmania has been using the same set for 20 years and it actually looks better than SNSW9.

I noted that Nine set up three studios within 12 months, so would likely want to delay any further investment. However, I feel itā€™s highly UNlikley Nine will never spend another penny if the franchise continues to prove popular. There has been a huge increase in the amount of live/nearly live television in the past five years (partly owing to the Netflix effect) so I donā€™t see why Nine would stubbornly let their product fall behind the competition.

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There is a version of the 9 News app promo playing on the SNSW bulletins that has Vanessa doing the voice over.

Previously they used the Peter Overton one.

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Weā€™ve had Samantha Heathwood voicing ours in NQ from the get go.

In other news:
I think itā€™s only the second time Iā€™ve seen it occur, but tonight we had a story from Cairns (with Sacha Passi) shown within our local window segment. Although, the story was still very relevant to the Townsville market anyway, itā€™s very rare to see a story from outside the local region during the local window.