You could even make it a requirement of a metro network’s license - if your regional affiliate cannot be arsed to produce anything of substantial use across all its licenses, you fine the metro as well. Through scheduling and the fact that you can’t pre-empt any metro program without either rescheduling it or cancel it altogether by the fact that the cross promotion is so far up each others backside, the metro networks already control 99% of what the regionals put out - WIN’s bad effort of showing whatever Bruce has got thanks to his Paramount ties or Prime7’s decent efforts with its news specials being the odd man out.
How funny would it be if if NRN or NEN didn’t do local news across all its sub-market areas in Northern NSW that TEN or ATN would cop a fine. Best sort of revenue raising ever. They should be made to bend over and take it like a man - as I’ve said, they essentially control the regional stations already, they should make allowances.
Under the media reforms passed in October, local content in the aggregated markets and Tasmania increased to 900 points per 6 weeks (news accounts for 2 points instead of 1).
I will provide a link to my previous calculations below, but under the new quota and considering a 5-day working week, they will be required by law to produce 30mins per day of local content. Using an example of all local content in that time being news, they would only have to produce 15mins per day of local content. Considering the old 700 points quota, that’s only a marginal increase (24->30; 12->15), a whole THREE more minutes of legislated local news (only if that whole quota is news-only).
This could be simplified even further by introducing a condition where there must be a minimum 30 minute “blackout” period per day in prime time (or a 60 minute “blackout” before 6pm) where regionals are not allows to simulcast network programming and must fill this slot with local content.
This would leave the gate open to produce different types of local content (chat shows, travel programs whatever), with acknowledgement that prime time content minutes are more ‘valuable’.
It also acknowledges that Prime and WIN’s current model (where they make news) is the benchmark of bare minimum. I would however extend it to weekends.
At the moment there is a cosy relationship where Seven sells ads nationally, including those screened on Prime and GWN. This is the same for all networks. The problem is, this removes an incentive for the networks to want their affiliates to make local programs as it’s harder to ‘sell’ them. It’s easier for networks if they know the exact product they’re selling across the board. ie: Dear Bunnings, your ads will run during 7 News with Mark Ferguson in Syd, Woll, Cbr, Newy in one package - about 6 million people in that area. Boom. That’s one of the reasons Nine wanted a consistent product on SCA and it worked. Regional ad spends went up the minute Nine came to town.
In the latest instalment of “Graphical changes you might’ve missed”, Prime7 Local News has slightly tweaked (mainly font wise, but there’s also some other minor differences) looking supers and OTS graphics as of last night:
They still don’t have the 6.30 news’ “Now” tweak for the NSW Newshour regions, ever since they unified presentation. I missed the Border closer version from the old graphics, though. They should’ve tweaked the endtag with the current graphics when the edited 7News Melbourne is next after the Albury news.
CONFIRMED: Keeping the “tradition”, Prime7 News will be closed on Christmas and Boxing Days. This means 7News will fill-in across the state for the 6pm hour. News Service and local news bulletins will return on Wednesday (27 Dec).
(UPDATE) GWN7 will have its annual Year In Review special of WA’s stories notably covered by the service at 5.30pm AWST, in place of its regular news bulletin, on Christmas Day. Presumably, the team in Bunbury either had or will be pre-recorded given that the WA newsrooms are closed on Christmas break.
I know there’s been a tonne of montages of Prime7 Local News posted to YouTube throughout 2017 but here’s a few more which I recorded during my North Coast trip in March for what they’re worth.
Of course since these bulletins were recorded further changes have taken place at the news service (reporter changes, additional slight graphics tweaks, etc.) but overall these clips should give you a fairly comprehensive look at what the On-Air Presentation of Prime7 News was like in 2017.
Probably a decent reason but given Prime made a big deal out of Guy’s appointment, to have him gone a few months later with no explanation suggests something happened behind the scenes.
There were issues with the 6.30 bulletin tonight. At the end of the local news this test pattern appeared for 1 and a half minutes, then they went into a report for a few seconds, then went to the first ad break, then came into segment again.
The ad break then played out again at the correct time. After it played the second time and they came back Daniel apologised for the technical problems and re-introduced the first story that was missed. Throughout the rest of the bulletin there were graphics issues - supers not playing at the right time / incorrect supers playing.
