I find it extremely odd how Nine (and now Seven) have moved away from big video wall graphics to simple OTS as of late.
6 Likes
The majority of stories get the full graphic or skycam backdrop. The cut down image is comparatively rare, sometimes it seems just once or twice a bulletin though sometimes more.
7 Likes
Few technical difficulties at the start of 7 Melbourne tonight
2 Likes
And the end during sport.
And last night too, the audio kept dropping in/out and some crackly vision too. Gremlins at BCM? Looks like the once state of the art facility 20 years ago is on its final legs. I thought there was talk some years back about a new facility, with Seven wishing to exit after lease changes at Docklands? Another issue has been the studio back-drop screen(s) often failing after intro with first story (jittering).
2 Likes
“We have two controls so we can have one on standby,” explained Seven’s head of news and current affairs Craig McPherson . “Given time zone differences there are occasions where we can have two control rooms running at the same time doing two different programs for two different markets. It’s something we haven’t had in the past, but it’s good that we do now.”
Ratings
The day I visited McPherson at the new Seven News studios, Nine released comms that claimed it had won the year for 6pm News in Sydney. It’s not a claim McPherson disputed. “They have won Sydney,” he told Mediaweek. “The gap [between Nine and Seven] is closing. We are now about 3,000 viewers behind Nine on average nightly this year. We were close to 30,000 behind last year. We are happy with the progress in Sydney, but we haven’t won it and that is one of our main challenges.”
“Perth continues to be very strong, Brisbane is not dissimilar to Sydney, with a close margin. Melbourne is flying for us where we have one around 50 weeks in succession
Latest:
“It would be nice to have a permanent timeslot, but the way programming is I can’t see that changing,” said McPherson. [Programmers] Angus Ross and Brook Hall are supporters of the program.” The Latest can go to air as late as post 11pm to as early as 9.30pm. “10.30pm is where we’d like to sit and we get there about half the time.”
“Could we [run a dedicated news channel]? Of course, we could. Would it cost that much money? Probably not. Would it make any money? Probably not. With a population of 26m we already have two news channels [ABC News and Sky News Australia].
“I’d love to do it. I have put forward a proposal for one. But right now we are more concerned with consolidating where we are and continuing to grow that audience.
9 Likes
Nice to hear a news channel is somewhat of a possibility at least.
3 Likes
Doing that could potentially allow Sunrise and other national bulletins to go live in all markets in the same manner that News Breakfast airs live on the ABC News channel, including in Adelaide and Perth, and Brisbane during daylight saving.
I also think the dedicated Sunrise news windows that Queensland got during 2021-22, was a one-off only.
3 Likes
They would certainly have plenty of content for 24/7 with access to all their regional teams and bulletins plus NBC Today.
3 Likes
Like he says, they could do it, if they do is a different matter.
5 Likes
Christie Cooper live in the News room for the top story on the Melb 4pm news.
Four minutes later she was live ‘on location’ in Melbourne’s north.
3 Likes
Opps
1 Like
There’s no way she would have been ‘live’ on location. They often have pre recorded reports from location and they don’t say they’re live.
1 Like
That’s the point of the comment.
This looks really clean and fresh. Great look for something mid-bulletin I would think.
1 Like
is 7 news at 6 or 8 due to footy
2 Likes
Following tonight’s match.
2 Likes
BCM no longer have any playout capacity, long gone with circuits to transmission sites long pulled out and cancelled. The gear was mostly end of life with some useable bits and pieces sent interstate repurposed to other Seven stations. Broadcast DR for Seven these days is over at Macquarie Park in Sydney.
The only ‘playout’ that BCM has done since the move of broadcast playout to Sydney is some special event streaming switching they did for the last Olympics for 7plus.
BCM Master Control is purely a contribution and production support Master Control now with no transmission function, long gone, and no longer staffed 24/7.
3 Likes