Seven News Content and Appearance

Maybe, but it’s not as if Mike Smithson and Rosanna Mangiarelli are complete unknowns to viewers of Seven Adelaide…

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They probably thought a budget set revamp was going to arrest the weeknight decline but it was so poorly executed it only reinforced the notion that Seven isn’t interested in investing in Adelaide.

They’re going to have to move Mike to weeknights alongside Jane or move Jane to weekends and have Rosanna and Mike as the team take them into the future. Adelaide has a clear preference for the double header. Why Seven persist in Sydney with the ridiculous weekend duel presenter format is beyond me.

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Not 100% sure about that. Seven was still dominating for most of last year until the idiots called Warburton and McPherson decided to mess around with the afternoon news and culling Jess Adamson and Tim Noonan.

It doesn’t matter if Seven goes for double header now. It’s too late to reverse any changes unless if they decide to get John Riddell or Graeme Goodings back to read with Jane and even then it’s not guaranteed that they’ll take back their dominance. They just need to invest in promoting their bulletin and also get some promos questioning Nine’s commitment or something like that to try and get their audience back.

The desk wouldn’t look as bad if it wasn’t a big slab of asphalt sitting on the top. Too thick, should be silver/white and thinner

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The set / desk itself isn’t so bad. It’s just not very modern by today’s standards.

Nah the top looks stupid. It looks stupid.

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The desk reminds me of it’s academic, or similar. Basically looks like it’s off a game show.

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The contestant podiums on the It’s Academic set were rounded. But yeah, the Seven News Adelaide desk probably wouldn’t look entirely out of place there…

ItsAcademic

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It is a very valid question. An odd strategy that hasn’t boosted weekend numbers in either Sydney or Adelaide.

That sounds counterintuitive. I’d be looking at the lead in first of all, though weekends are more concerning at this stage.

Would rather one of these desks than what they’ve just put in the refreshed Adelaide studio.

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Unrelated to what we’re talking about here in regards to dual presenters, but on the topic of lead ins, Seven need to take a look at Sydney and Melbourne in particular where Hot Seat continues to beat The Chase Australia regularly.

If Seven had the cash, they could follow the lead of Seven Gold Coast News and start up a couple of new 5:30pm local news services, one in (say) the Mornington Peninsula for Melbourne and (say) Penrith for Sydney. This would mean the local afternoon news finishes at 4:30pm to cutaway to The Chase Australia, then local news at 5:30pm.

Whilst this won’t make huge inroads, it would be a good start for them to slowly scrape away at Nine by increasing local presence outside the “CBD bubble” (for the need of a better term), which would likely deliver good lead in numbers to the 6pm news.

Do the Sydney & Melbourne news services really serve viewers in the outlying suburbs that poorly?

I could eventually see bureaus being established by the commercial networks in population hotspots (perhaps places like the Central Coast, Parramatta, Liverpool, Campbelltown, Penrith from a Sydney perspective) but hyperlocal bulletins won’t ever happen…at least via terrestrial TV.

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Short answer - no.

It’s more so that by creating hyperlocal bulletins for population hotspots outside the big cities, networks get that extra opportunity they don’t get at 6pm to bring those viewers hyperlocal stories that matter to them, plus it shows the community that the network is committed to delivering them local news, which is good for the news brand and may convince more viewers to get on board for that all important hour from 6pm-7pm.

Don’t know about Melbourne, but Sydney has several major suburban centres such as those mentioned above: If you chose to do a special local bulletin for Penrith for example, you’d be annoying the hundreds of thousands of people who live in/around other major suburban centres of the viewing area that are equally worthy of a local TV bulletin.

Incorporating more community-oriented news stories/features from around the suburbs is a very good idea, but why can’t that be done within existing 4pm & 6pm bulletins?

Nine Sydney tried a Liverpool and Parramatta Bureau at one point many moons ago.

Nine Brisbane used to produce their Morning News from Springfield but was never a bureau I understand.

No point doing a local news for places like Penrith or Geelong unless it’s for online or their own streaming service.

Gold Coast is different because at least the news is broadcast on the UHF Mt Tamborine translators so it’s technically able to be “broken away” from the Brisbane signals and vast majority of homes aerials (below Pimpama) point towards Mt Tamborine as opposed to Mt Coot-tha. This isn’t possible for places like Geelong or Penrith.

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The only people who frankly give two shits about set revamps are media enthusiasts like us.

When it comes to the ‘average viewer’, what’s important is content and presenters.

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Agreed. My local coffee club has just done a “revamp”- visually looks nice but doesn’t really make me want to go in there. Still lipstick on a pig.

Content is king.
I honestly didn’t mind the last set. They could have just updated the screen, some lighting and a new facade for the desk they already had and it would have been fine… the Adelaide market is so small that a massive investment for that space isn’t with it. Simple but clean and modern would do the job.

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I think the reason for the shorter desk is so that they can do standing presentations with the main screen. But I agree with where you’re coming from.

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I don’t really think it was a smart decision to be honest. And if so they should have kept a similar style rather then it looking like an infomercial desk.

The main aspect off the bulletin has been affected for allow for a 5-10 minute sport segment which standing presentation to me adds nothing to their bulletin.

If it was a studio space like Melbourne, sure but it doesn’t work for the Adelaide bulletin - it’s doing it for the sake of doing it and it’s brought down the overall content presentation because of it.

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It was more of a studio than a bureau. 7 also had an Ipswich bureau around that time.