Sam clearly wasn’t impressed with it either.
That is truly Unexceptable 
4 Likes
As noted in the Nine News area.
This would be Southern Cross doing the axing presumably.
https://forums.mediaspy.org/t/nine-news-content-and-appearance/67/7187?u=tv.cynic
Quite sad to hear that Nine has axed two of their regional bulletins, particularly the Mackay edition because that (again) leaves the market with only Seven providing a local news service on TV.
Don’t know much about the Toowoomba/Darling Downs market, but I wonder if that one has been axed due to Nine rating third behind Seven & WIN?
4 Likes
Southern Cross are still required to provide content of local significance in those 2 markets (as opposed to Wide Bay and Sunshine Coast) so seems a strange choice. The advertising dollars must have been really bad.
Will we see the return of noodle updates?
2 Likes
The beginning of the end of Nine News Regional???
1 Like
Didn’t expect to see that coming.
From Monday February 18 the Mackay audience will receive a hybrid regional bulletin featuring local weather, state and local news. Toowoomba viewers will now receive Nine’s South East Queensland bulletin.
This confuses me. What exactly is Mackay getting then? The normal regional bulletin but with a reduced amount of local stories? And Toowoomba will receive no local weather/news inserts at all and just take the Brisbane bulletin?
5 Likes
Mackay would be sharing with Central Queensland or Townsville during local windows. The Darling Downs is already given.
1 Like
This was part of the operational review I referred to in the SCA Regional radio thread the other day.
It shouldn’t be, it just isn’t viable to run the Mackay and Darling Downs newsrooms because of the areas low population.
While the licence conditions state a minimum service offering, there’s no incentive to produce over that - doesn’t appear to be a difficult decision really
6 Likes
So which bulletins are next?
I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Southern NSW next
I’ve heard the Victorian bulletins are safe given Nine dominates outside of news anyway.
I could see Nine/SCA deciding to merge the ACT and Riverina bulletins, while also deciding to discontinue producing the Illawarra bulletin.
In regards to Nine/SCA merging the Canberra/Riverina bulletins, that would give the ABC & WIN a free kick in the local news battle in Canberra, likewise for Prime7 & WIN in the Riverina.
In the worst case scenario, as well as merging the Canberra & Riverina bulletins, I could also see them merge with the Central West bulletin.
4 Likes
sometimes 9 but more so 7
I’m already wondering if the Illawarra newsroom has been downgraded given the local window tonight was populated mostly with stories from Canberra and the Riverina (ACT courts ruling on workplace death, Riverina car crash, Wagga murder sentencing).
The only local news report utilising a Wollongong based reporter (Brittany Hughes) was on a music festival. Vanessa did a couple of brief VO reports (Batemans Bay aquatic centre funding and Kangaroo Valley show cheese tasting record attempt). The only local sport story (Illawarra Hawks) was covered by the Sydney based sport presenter. The big local stories of the day (Grimmer case and dark web drug arrest) were covered at the top off the bulletin by Nine’s Sydney reporters because they featured in the Sydney bulletin. The drug arrest story didn’t even mention where on the South Coast the bust was made.
Makes you wonder why Nine is bothering if that’s the extent of their “local” Illawarra news. They may as well air noodle updates and return Overton to Illawarra screens.
4 Likes