Pushed, GTV management wanted Livinia Nixon in.
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Due to adding more diversity to the news brand.
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With David Koch retiring, I’ve been watching old editions of Seven News from 2002 on YouTube (and back on the forum!)
Something I just noticed is that when HSV moved to the Docklands studio in March they clearly don’t have 16:9 versions of any of the motion graphics, and go to lengths to hide it:
You then go back and watch the Sydney News and Sunrise from 2002, and they’re putting the 4:3 video up on the studio displays too!
Did Melbourne’s evening presentation ever get better before the 2004 look was launched?
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The reason I ask is… by the time the 4:30 news rolls around, clearly they’ve been able to get the graphics re-rendered in 16:9:
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Those graphics still look fresh twenty years on.
And welcome to MediaSpy! 
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Where abouts was this desk positioned in relation to the current set? Is it the same studio just turned 180?
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Yes it would be the same studio space, rotated so that the presenter would face the newsroom. This switcheroo occurred in June 2005 when Melbourne got the twisted metal set.
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The titlecard in the opener was changed in early 2004. However, the graphics seemed to still look stretched right until the relaunch.
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Seven wasn’t nicknamed Channel 4+3 for nothing. It was famous for lagging in upgrading to widescreen, etc.
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Let’s not forget 576p “HD” either.
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Perth and National Updates from mid-2004, video courtesy of the uploader, TapeLifter:
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Notice the 10.30pm national news update use to be around 5 mins.
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By that point they had axed the Late News due to falling ratings, and strong competition from Nightline and Ten’s Late News/Sports Tonight.
Fast forward to now and while both Seven and Nine have revived late-night news bulletins, 10 is going with a repeat of The Project.
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It wasn’t just due to competition.
The varying timeslots from 10.30pm to even midnight also was a factor
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Something I’ve noticed related to this - when the titles were re-rendered in 16:9, an animation error was introduced with the “seven” glass text not correctly wiping out (presumably somebody forgot to recreate the mask). You can see it in the 4:30 news video I’ve shared before, but it’s also noticeable in these clips from TVW:
Compare 27 seconds into this video:
to 9 seconds into this video:
Post 16:9 conversion the titles have the error and are stretched from 4:3.
So with the move of control to BCM, they went to the effort of re-rendering the titles in 16:9 yet played them out stretched all over the country.
Only Sydney kept the original version until the move to Martin Place.
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That was During a Coverage of the 2001-2002 Black Christmas Bushfire Crisis from the 24th of December on Christmas Eve to the 16th of January 2002.
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I think the blue TV wall set must’ve been introduced later that month, from what I can think it could’ve been during the Australian Open.
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