I remember Nicole presenting weather out of Darwin, but I don’t recall seeing Sam and Paul presenting from Darwin?
In fact looking back at posts on here, it’s clear that the bulletin was still presented from Brisbane while Nicole was in Darwin.
I frequently see pictures like this from the presenters for promo shoots, but I’ve never once seen any of these promos actually air on TV? Has anyone else seen anything like this?
(This is from July)
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Interesting!
I’ve never once seen any of these promos on air in North Queensland. Even though Samantha and the team often post about making new promos on their various social media sites.
The only promo that ever airs is the promo that features clips of recent news with “See it First, on Nine News” to end.
Maybe Nine are producing these promos, but SCA are not putting them to air?
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I’m not sure about other markets but TCN are definitely still “Sydney-fying” the coverage of Regional NSW news for Nine News Sydney, by getting TCN reporters travelling to the regions even for relatively minor stories (I’m not talking about big national stories which need the help of additional resources, but content that wouldn’t be of interest outside NSW) where taking the locally-based report would be adequate enough.
This is most evident for news coverage of events in Northern NSW, which genuinely makes me wonder if there’s some form of internal rivalry between the Sydney & Newcastle stations of the Nine Network. Either way, Nine News’ priorities when it comes to their coverage of Regional NSW are seriously out of whack IMO.
From a metropolitan Australia perspective, composite local/state/national/international bulletins appear to work extremely well. Although there’s probably less time for the more “community minded” content traditionally seen on regional TV news programs, it just seems more efficient to have all the days most important stories in one bulletin.
But I do wonder if regional markets have a different expectation for news to what we in Sydney do. For many years until the relatively recent introduction of hour long bulletins, local news followed by “national” (metropolitan/capital city) news or visa versa would’ve been what viewers were used to in most major markets of regional Australia and indeed, the Seven affiliates have largely stuck to that formula to much success.
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I guess the Seven formula forces the stations to produce a full 1/2hr of local and regional state news. More “localness” I guess is what regional viewers want?
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Yes but people look at Sydney and see it as somewhere they know. Many people travel to Sydne and have an interest.
Not sure about everyone else but if I lived in Regional NSW, I’d probably only really care about Sydney stories with statewide/national implications.
Nine News Southern NSW/ACT really needs to do “the NBN test” when looking at Sydney news items before deciding to run them during the bulletin. If the answer to the question “Would Newcastle run this story across the entire Northern NSW/Gold Coast market?” is no, than neither would it be of interest to viewers in Canberra, the Illawarra, the Central West & the Riverina.
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Sometimes a story can be worthy of inclusion just because it’s interesting or the pictures are good… it need not have an implication for the viewer.
But that maybe what you meant.
The story should certainly be cast in such a way that omits unnecessary detail etc.
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NBN have their own faults.
Yes, they are less likely to run Sydney news in regional areas, they are guilty of running Newcastle specific items across all of Northern NSW and the Gold Coast too often, usually 2 or 3 items per night.
If I were a viewer north of Newcastle, I think I would prefer to hear Sydney news, at least that is the state capital, and people are much more likely to travel to Sydney than Newcastle.
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Yeah, fair point about the Newcastle-centric content of NBN. It’s probably most evident on the NSW Central Coast where there have been occasions they’ve had to run a combined Newcastle/Central Coast news window (while retaining local content windows for Sport and if it’s a weekend, weather) seemingly due to a lack of local stories! 
If I was a viewer somewhere like Tamworth or Port Macquarie, I’d probably still prefer to hear more stories related to the regional area around me (ie, North West or Mid North Coast respectively) rather than Sydney. That may explain why Prime7 wins those markets.
So it appears to have been 360 comments since I last checked in here, how are these new bulletins tracking? Any word on viewers?
I’d imagine Southern markets of NSW would be closest, with the 7QLD dominance and Prime7 VIC dominance (and NBN already dominate northern markets of NSW).
How’s my old pal from the Ten Melbourne chopper doing back in the day, Vanessa O’Hanlon, well received?
Yeah she’s beloved. Just don’t read the 360 comments you’ve missed.
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ATN Melbourne is dire at the moment, like 3 reporters left looking at their website (Brisbane has like 15 with less than half the population and like no traffic) maybe she can go back to her old gig then? 
Absolutely 100%
And I can totally see why people complain that Nine’s regional news lacks local stories. All of the headline stories and local stories are shown pretty close to the first 5 minutes and then it’s just national stories for the next 45 minutes until sport, filled with stories that frequently mention things like “and here in Brisbane…”.
IMO the local windows on Nine News need to be doubled (from 5 minutes to 10 minutes) and spread out to make the bulletin actually feel more localised.
I believe it should be:
6:00 - 6:05 Local Opening and 3x Local Stories
6:05 - 6:16 National Stories and live crosses
6:16 - 6:17 Local Weather Preview and local throw to break
6:20 - 6:23 2x Local Stories and Local VOs
6:23 - 6:25 National Stories
6:28 - 6:35 National Stories
6:35 - 6:39 National Stories/throw to sport
6:42 - 6:46 National Sport
6:46 - 6:49 Local Sport
6:52 - 6:55 Local Weather
6:55 - 6:56 Local Headline Recap
6:56 - 7:00 Finance/Other stories
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Aside from big state/national/international news days, I honestly think the first 10 minutes or so should be local. Wherever possible, run the Opener (including a mix of local, state, national & international headlines) followed by the most important local stories of the day.
“Good Evening. First tonight on Nine News North Queensland…” - you get the idea.
Remain with local content right up until the Weather preview, followed by the region-wide content:
“And now to your statewide, national and international coverage. The Federal Government has today announced…”
Continue with the mixed content until the local Sport window, where the presenter would go “And now to your local Sport Headlines…” at the start of the segment, with the content staying local right up to the break playout.
Then after the final ad break, go to Finance & short/fluff stories followed by the Local Weather, Local Headline Recap & Closer where the presenters could sign off with…
“That’s Nine News North Queensland for this Wednesday. We’ll have updates throughout the evening but for now, goodnight.”
Mightn’t be perfect, and I’m not sure if it could work logistically, but at least throwing in those ideas would make the bulletin(s) feel like something resembling an actual locally produced product rather than the current mixing and matching.
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I get the idea but I think if Nine wants to do a composite bulletin they need to harness the technology available and allow bulletins to have maximum flexibility region by region.
Producers need to be able to decide that the top story in some regions will need to be local while in others it will need to be national.
To have a rule that local news must go first will impose false priorities on rundowns.
In practical terms this may not be achievable under existing workflows… but if bulletins are assembled as individual story clips it could be as simple as shuffling a deck of cards.
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The EP of Regional Rob Hurst (formerly NBN) does not have much of a choice, he has to use most of the TCN content to fill the bulletin regardless.
Lots of people don’t want to feel like they are watching local news however.
I would prefer to see either:
(1) 30 min local bulletin followed by an edited version of the metro Nine News for 30 mins (a la 7OLD and Prime7 Albury).
(2) Take Nine News metro for the first 20 mins, local for the next 20, and then return to Nine News metro for sport and weather. Though timing the return to Nine News could be difficult.
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I’d go number 1. I can see Nine stuffing up number 2.
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