Pretty sure it was longer than 6 months.
Wouldn’t have been more than a year or so though.
And SEQ’s set at the time looked exactly like the MVQ footage you uploaded in your post. I think this was in line with TVQ as well. It was the Mike Higgins and Kay McGrath era from memory.
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The thing is, not everyone gets what they want. Ratings rule so that’s the way it’s gonna go.
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It’s hard to know exactly when Skase purchased TVQ and when they made the changes and in turn when the affiliation changed to Seven which was probably late in '87. MVQ appears to have only ever taken 7 news in 1987 however, that is only based on what I have ever found online.
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All a bit fizzy for me but 1987 was my last year of uni in Rocky and I can recall Nev Roberts and Ian Hislop (and maybe Glenn Taylor?) presenting an hour of 7 news. I think that was new for that year. Prior to that it had been news and State Affair.
From 1985-1987 I used to go home regularly to Bundy and I can recall seeing the local news within the TVQ Eyewitness News hour for at least part of that time.
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Up until '87, all regionals (including NTD8 Darwin) could only relay what was available on the Telecom microwave bearer which was completed in 1973. QTQ had the first agreement followed ten years later by BTQ in mid 1983. Satellites changed all that in the late 80’s which of course is when affiliates started to form such as SEQ & MVQ due to their ownership. DDQ being so close to Brisbane could pick up the Brisbane commercials off-air, so could do their own sourcing without technical limitation. BTQ changed things On Monday April 6th, 1987 when they went to 1 one hour bulletin and it appears that many of the regions (notably RTQ & NQTV maybe DDQ) looked to QTQ as the only 30 minutes of news available so they could fit their own bulletins around it more easily (not all regionals relayed State Affair prior tho this). If not straight away but not after as by the end of the year, the regional TV news relays looked completely different in QLD.
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My memory is not so bad then!
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If memory serves me right, STQ got raw Today Tonight reports that week (because TT was on the air during that time), and insert them to the live 2nd half hour. That way, Seven QLD would rejoin the tennis coverage on time.
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Again. Moving your #1 show out of prime time
- is stupid
- would piss or viewers
- would reduce revenue
- would reduce prime time leading.
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So you’re suggesting a tv station re-program to your personal taste, not for what would be commercially successful.
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Don’t forget, many people in these regions don’t realise there is a “full” metro bulletin. For them, 6pm is appointment viewing for their local news. Many have probably watched Rob Brough for 20-odd years.
And now you can access those full bulletins on 7plus if you so choose. It may not be at 6pm, but its there.
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That was the point I was making. 
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If only all of us could be so lucky
An obvious sign that the bulletins are presented in Maroochydore. This was during the weather on the Far North Queensland bulletin last Wednesday.
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Living on the Coast at that time, IIRC Nev Roberts retired around the end of November 1995. I do recall Mike Higgins being one of the presenters filling in on Seven Local News in December 1995.
Rob Brough still had episodes of BTQ produced Family Feud airing towards the end of 1995.
From memory, Rob Brough offiicially took over as STQ’s/Seven Local News presenter at the start of January 1996.
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And when BTQ was replaying episodes of Family Feud at 5pm, Sunshine would air MASH. They probably didn’t think it appropriate for their newsreader to be seen hosting a quiz show in the hour before.
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And that makes perfect sense to me. Thank you for updating. Although I lived in Brisbane in the 90’s, for some reason I never ventured outside of Brisbane that much so can only go by newspaper reports at the time and since then, Media Spy & You Tube.
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I recall Mike Higgins filling in. He was in semi-retirement I think, living somewhere on the Sunshine Coast.
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AFAIK, she has her own email under Seven, but was it because she is entering local politics that Seven advised not to use her email for weather photo submissions?
Plus, I guess that is Seven’s way to compile all Regional QLD submissions to a single address for easy downloading to present. Would’ve just given it to local newsrooms, but that is just strange.
I think the same email might have something to do with parts of the weather forecast going out to all regions, so maybe the weather pic is one of those.
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The discussion of moving the local to 5:30 to favour the hour long Brisbane news here clearly shows that a lot of people don’t really understand Regional Queenslanders.
I grew up in Regional QLD and lived there for much of my 20’s as well.
People in Regional QLD are very “set in their ways”, they don’t like change.
I think that is one of the reasons Seven’s bulletin still rates so well.
They’ve stuck to their format without fault, and managed to keep a consistent presenter.
People in Regional QLD are also very interested in their local area and don’t really like Brisbane.
Moving the local bulletin to 5:30 so that they can hear about hyper local Brisbane stories at 6:00 would be an absolutely massive misstep, and i’m sure 7QLD know that, hence, the format stays the same.
Additionally, there’s absolutely no need to get rid of the cutdown Brisbane bulletin.
Yes, it has some flaws, but they cut it down in a way to remove all of the Brisbane stories.
Watching it in Regional QLD, they pretty much only keep the state politics, national/international stories, or major stories from one of the regional markets.
The Brisbane bulletin really isn’t a “Brisbane” bulletin when you watch it in Regional QLD because all of the Brisbane stuff is cut out.
The way they’re doing it is the best way, hence the good ratings.
Viewers get to see what’s important to them, local news, at 6:00, then they get a different bulletin at 6:30 with different presenters covering relevant statewide, national, international stories. It’s a different set, different presenters. It’s a clear difference from their local news.
The current model is absolutely the one that appeals to Regional QLD’ers and shouldn’t be changed.
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