- They do a wider shot when they do the cross to sport
- Graphic designer renders out two versions
- He clearly needs some feedback from viewers based on ratings
This is about as zoomed out as Iâve ever seen the set. Thanks to @SydneyCityTV for the cap.
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That may be so, but if the ratings and advertising dollars arenât there, thatâs 8-10 staff too many.
TV Sales people always bemoan the fact that ânews doesnât make any moneyâ. A regional news bulletin (anchored in another city) to produce can be upwards of $800,000 a year after you factor in staff and vehicle costs and equipment upgrades. A lot of stations donât bring in $800,000 on advertising during their local news so they need advertising in other programs to make their money. If the station canât bring in the dough anymore then the local news will be first to go. Itâs even tougher when you have 2 other competing channels to find this $$ with a similar product.
Yes, I do. But I personally think a 6pm news bulletin needs headlines. Viewers tune into WIN News⊠they see headlines, viewers tune into Prime7 News⊠they see headlines, viewers tune into 7 News Sydney⊠they see headlines, etc.
Viewers tuning in to 9 News (Canberra/Illawarra/Riverina, etc.) should see headlines as well.
Headlines are important for a 6pm bulletin in my opinion, and the lack of them is very annoying to me.
I know that the set is tiny, but the zoomed in Vanessa shot where you canât see anything but Vanessa and the green screen image is boring.
Fair enough, use it a little bit.
But the opener, a fair few stories, throw to ads, the closer, etc. should be zoomed out a little so that we can at least see the desk a little. Simpler to how they do when they cross to sport, or even better just like in that 9 News Now shot that @CBR has linked to.
When the presenter appeared on 9 News Now at the start of the bulletin they used to slowly pan the camera in from a wider shot to a close up. In my opinion they should do that on the regional bulletins.
This wide shot of the set:
With a shot like this for Canberra
And a shot similar to this for Wollongong
Could literally be achieved by this coming Monday - and would improve the appearance of the bulletin 10 fold. Actually I think it would look quite stunning.
Perhaps maybe one of our great mockers @Moe @RegionalTV or @Syd_TVChannel could show us what that would
Look like
In the appropriate mocks sub forum, of course.
Absolutely. Itâs funny how much of a cumulative impact several small things can have. Iâd love for them to work on the issues in the following order of easiest to increased difficulty/effort:
- Fix the theme at breaks (make it stop properly like 9News Sydney instead of just fading away).
- A quick & easy fix.
- Per-story backgrounds, excluding the 1st story. Ideally the city background should only be seen at the start of the bulletin, at the handovers to sport & weather, before short read/voiceover stories, and at the end of the bulletin, but as long as the generic backdrop isnât constantly there (like now).
- A bit more work, but backgrounds will already exist for the state & national stories, plus couldnât they be prepared well in advance when finishing editing the local stories?
- Opening headlines, different for each bulletin (Canberra, Illawarra, etc.)
- As this should happen as close to 18:00 as practical itâs a bit trickier during that busy time, but it is needed for the main evening bulletin.
PS: At least tonight the theme finished instead of being cut off with the switch to ACA.
Thatâs pathetic for SCA9 to quote âreachâ (which I believe is every viewer who tuned-in during a program for at least 1min @TV.Cynic?)
When WIN News Wollongong clearly smashed them!
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Interesting that Ballarat is not the biggest regional city (second biggest to Melbourne) in VIC, Geelong obviously is. Itâs just Geelong is part of the Melbourne TV market.
Ballarat: ~100k (although the TV sub-market catchment would probably be bigger, covering much of western VIC).
Geelong: ~250k
Yeah thatâs so interesting.
I thought Bendigo population might of been bigger by now their has been talks of them overtaking Ballarat
Also very interesting is the population of the Gold Coast for OzTAM ratings purposes - 783,000.
Agree whole heartedly with NQCQTV2 and TV-ACT on these zero cost fixes. I donât understand why the top story isnât presented from a slightly wider shot (as used for the Sports cross) with Vanessa centre screen. I actually think theyâve made the green screen âwindowâ too large. It makes Vanessa look like sheâs floating. Iâd have gone for something like a plasma screen look as used by ABC a few years ago. They could easily reduce the size of the green screen by adding more of a frame to the inside.
Regarding the theme fade at ad breaks, this is likely to be due to timing out (though Iâm just making a supposition based on NBN). As the local windows will vary in length, the transitions in to break will be used to pad the window back to time - so they can pick up the âlive feedâ on time. It seems the method they are using is to have the full 60 second news them set to images, and they just play out until they hit the time marker, then fade out. The way around this is to âback timeâ - a very simple trick where you start your time out music dead on time, in the background, while the recorded playout is finishing. Then you fade IN to the time out bed that has already been running on time. That way the hard finish meets your timing point.UploadingâŠ
Some issues in tonightâs bulletin.
Opener, with the first story taking too long to play:
Closer, with the story cutting off half-way through:
As requested on Monday night, here is a short montage of the Canberra bulletin:
To compare to the Illawarra montage from the same night:
Yep, I agree 100%.
Viewers are clearly aware that Vanessa is sitting in front of a large screen due to the sport cross.
Why not, at least for the start of the bulletin, closer, and throw to ads, zoom the image out a bit so that we can see a little bit of the set away from the TV, as you say, just like is done in sport.
It would be easy to achieve now without needing to do anything major.
One other minor thing Iâd like to see is a change to Vanessaâs script at the start. The way she goes from âGood evening.â straight into a story seems off and a little cold, especially when thereâs no opening headlines.
It needs to be something a bit more inviting like âGood evening, thanks for joining us. Firstly tonight, âŠâ, just to make it a bit more friendly!
I donât think many newsreaders say âthanks for joining usâ. Sounds very clichĂ©.
âGood eveningâ is usually enough if itâs connected directly to the subsequent sentence without an awkward pause. For example: âGood evening and welcome to Nine News. New South Wales is struggling to cope with another day of scorching weather, with the Premier warning of potential blackouts in some regional communitiesâ.
Although maybe a lack of headlines beforehand makes the whole thing disjointed.