Aren’t regional stations required to have local content? And news content earns 4 times as many points (and probably 25 times as many ratings points) as other types of content
That in effect makes it a requirement almost
And for some stations when you look at the lift local news gives a whole station (7 QLD, NBN Newcastle, 7 Perth, 7 Tasmania) from a financial point of view local news is a requirement
What do you mean?
Because they’re basically powerless thanks to the imbalance in their relationship with the metros - not to mention it would probably be considered cartel behaviour (and the government aren’t interested in regulation of much of the commercial aspects of the industry
The rules are vague enough that it appears that it doesn’t necessarily have to be news, but rather “material of local significance”. The rules give some favouritism to news - 2pt/min for “local area” and 1pt/min for “licence area” and CSA content
Only because it’s become the default response to fill the quota and there is a strong element of risk-aversity in the sector.
If you’re market leading, news makes sense (and is probably a decent contributor to ratings), but if you’re last (and possibly even second), doing something different for local content quotas is an option (Southern Cross tried it with State Focus a number of years back)
I’m actually of the firm belief it’s because the heads of SCA, Prime and WIN Don’t know how the US system works. And how more local news actually means more revenue for stations
Nine and Seven both know having strong local news on their affiliate stations comes back to them in larger revenue. Seven has explicitly stated this public ally when talking about Prime’s news. And Nine has acknowledged this in putting resources and money into SCA’s news
Strong local news on affiliates lifts the entire stations revenue through primetime halo effect. Which both the affiliate and network benefit from. It’s in both parties interest.
However in the case of Win and Prime the affiliate bears the cost of producing the news. If that could be offset by being allowed to keep 100% of the revenue booked in the local news, the affiliate has a financial incentive to produce local news and market and promote it well, and the network still benefits from the halo effect of 7pm to midnight
Do the regionals cover enough population to make local news truly successful in this day and age?
In other words - are there enough societal and political issues in a given regional market to create an engaging and successful news product?
You can just imagine a network going the US route and pouring money into a new news bureau, with journos armed with their mic’s and in their cars ready to go
… and all that’s happened in Orange that day is Agnes the Cow gave birth to a calf.
Except in the majority of WINs markets, all of Southern Cross and a few Prime markets.
No.
Maybe in the more populated regional areas. And I certainly think there are areas even within the major metropolitan markets where the networks should be doing a better job of doing local news coverage, however that discussion is for another time and topic.
But if I’m being honest, it’s probably a miracle that places like the NSW Central West & Riverina were able to sustain competing local TV news services for as long as they did…especially when you compare their situation to how things were/are in the Illawarra: A market which only had (and will soon return to having) a single local TV news bulletin for many years.
I think that would be a false assumption to make.
CEOs of national corporations would be expected to look across the world for ideas and “best practice” business models that they can apply to their business.
I tend to agree with @bacco007 that there is a power imbalance at play here that limits their ability to influence the agreement.
It might mean more revenue, but if it costs more to produce than the extra revenue it generates (which seems likely) then it’s not worth it.
Yes for some broadcasters. Prime7/GWN7, NBN (Nine) and Seven Queensland seem to still make profit from their Local News. Ditto for WIN in their current News markets (if they didn’t they would have been purged already) and SCA in Tasmania and Spencer Gulf/Broken Hill. Seven and Nine seem to make profits from their Gold Coast News too.
Their resources have been cut though and more and more local news bulletins are relying on ‘traveller’ stories to fill their bulletins. So if a journalist in Orange files a generalised story about agriculture in regional NSW it could air across all the Prime7 bulletins.
It would be harder for another player to come in and start producing news bulletins because the advertising pie shrinks each year. This could be a justification behind WIN not wanting to produce Local News in the areas they previously produced a half hour bulletin for.
One day Local News may be totally unprofitable and will be gone or needs to merge across several sub-markets to remain profitable.
… rubbish … and it doesn’t apply in Oz anyway …
It’s been a while since I really watched the Prime7 Local News bulletins on YouTube, but when the uploads began in 2015 it didn’t take long for me to pick up on how reliant they were on “generic regional issues” stories from other regions or their Sydney-based correspondent. From what I’ve seen and heard, both Seven QLD and WIN do pretty much exactly the same thing.
Remembering what both have done in previous years, we’ll likely see one of the most obvious examples of “generic regional issues” coverage this time in two weeks from both Prime7 and WIN in NSW/ACT! 
Unfortunately, I suspect you may be right.
Financially, it depends if you look at just the 30 minute bulletin or the halo effect for the whole night. Larger markets probably make profit just from the news. Mid-sized would lose a bit on news but make it up by having higher ratings all night, and then smaller markets probably lose overall- they’re the markets with no local news/less options.
The reality though is that a 30 minute all local bulletin is used to fill. Most markets only have 2-3 journalists and not enough stories to fill 30 mins. Therefore about half the content is more generic and of less interest.
@KICK-IT Is actually right about the affiliation agreements.
Nine will be getting 50% of the money WIN News makes so therefore you still have to make a profit on top or decide it’s simply not worth your while and fill your commercial breaks with news updates instead.
Why the regional networks sign these deals is madness. It actually defeats the whole purpose of localism because there’s a lack of financial incentive.
It’s easy to think that TV execs are dim-witted but I think it’s ridiculous to insist that TV execs here are completely oblivious to how TV works in the US. If a bunch of keyboard warriors here know how it works, then why wouldn’t they?? I can’t believe they are so kept inside a bubble to not know what’s happening in other markets.
How does the US system work in the truly rural areas though. I know the smaller cities have their own affiliates but when you really get out into the country are their regional affiliates or are they just picking up their nearest city channel, which may be hundreds of miles away.
Once you get into the smaller markets of the US, I’m pretty sure it’s not uncommon for the same company to own two major network affiliates: Eg, the CBS and FOX station.
The largest cities in the United States are of course pretty much in the situation of being all (or mostly) network O&O markets as the case is with Australia’s big five.
OT and slightly complicated but a station might be an affiliate for two networks (let’s use KXGN-TV in Glendive, Montana who air CBS on their main channel and NBC on their secondary multichannel). In this case, ABC/FOX/CW/MyNetworkTV (sometimes) would be re-broadcast by another nearby or larger terrestrial broadcaster over-the-air or on cable into that area.
But the US is the best at everything. There’s just no way they would have known and refused to implement an identical system. Therefore, they mustn’t know.
When it comes to Local TV News I was under the impression that the Original Pre Aggregation Station was the one who had to cover local news. For example in Newcastle (NBN) & in New England (NEN Prime 7) But in saying that NRN (Now WIN) in Lismore & Coffs don’t do local news anymore outside noodle updates