Wollongong update from last night
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Monday February 10, 2025: Daniel Gibson filled-in for Nick on the regional bulletins tonight. Stephen Murphy presented sport (except the Coast bulletin), while there was no weather presenter (Dan presented it from the desk)
Meanwhile, Liz Robbins read the Regional WA bulletin, with Campbell Greaves on the weather
I wouldn’t see an ACT 7 bulletin as ‘hyperlocal’, but an equivalent to 7Tas, NBN or 9Darwin. Nearly half a million people in the ACT, and well over half in the viewing area. Different ‘state’, government, education and health system - and yes, people in Queanbeyan and Goulburn do commute, so what happens in Canberra does matter to them.
Wollongong is slightly different, as it’s only 90 mins from Sydney, a similar distance to Penrith and other outer suburbs. Or Geelong to Melbourne for that matter.
Not saying the economics for a Canberra 7 bulletin are there, but I think it would find a slightly higher audience than showing ATN7 news in Canberra.
If there were no ROI in local news, Ten wouldn’t have bothered re-opening Perth or Brisbane studios, surely.
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Finally, someone who actually supports the idea of a local 7NEWS bulletin in Canberra. After all, do note that all of the Regional NSW bulletins and Regional NSW/VIC/ACT noodle updates are being broadcast from Canberra. They need to have some form of presence in the 6pm timeslot in their home market at least.
Now if we look at Regional QLD, Seven has local news bulletins being broadcast from studios in Maroochydore, including their home market on the Sunshine Coast, and WIN News bulletins at 5:30pm are broadcast from studios in Wollongong, including in their home market.
I reckon CBN Seven should seriously take a look at Seven Regional QLD and WIN News and maybe consider implementing a 30-min 6pm bulletin for Canberra, then at 6:30pm also have either the National version from Canberra (as seen in Regional NSW markets except Albury) or a trimmed down version of 7NEWS Sydney.
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Perth and Brisbane/SEQ are both much larger markets in terms of population. Probably more ad dollars in it as opposed to Canberra.
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There is prospectively a case for what you have just suggested, but it would have to be implemented in a smart way, cost effective way. If they did a hyperlocal half hour with stories from Canberra and Wollongong first and foremost and filler stories from say the Riverina. I’m not saying that there isnt enough local news for Canberra, but if you consider the different model used in NSW by having the former Prime NSW station having a regionally produced local news, whereas in Victoria and Queeensland where local news screens, they receive a condensed metropolitan Seven News, you wonder how the economics are there for producing a half hour edition of Seven (National) News in NSW but not the other states
If you did that noone in Canberra would watch. There is plenty of news in Canberra to warrant a full composite bulletin. Back in the mid 90s all 3 commercial stations had at least 30 minutes of local news produced in Canberra. This has not changed. The news in Canberra needs to be well produced on par with Seven’s Sydney news or at least the former Ten Capital News otherwise don’t bother.
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Agreed, the capital deserves better than a poxy regional bulletin. Should be a full blown 6pm newshour of local and national news.
Same set up as NBN.
Canberra doesn’t need any regional opts out though. A 6pm Bulletin from 7 for Canberra would be ideal.
Given that Canberra is only a sub-part of the former CTC viewing region, they would need to be include stories from Cooma, Yass, Goulburn, Crookwell, Tumut, Bungendore and even some south coast stories from nearby centres such as Batemans Bay. If you arde entirely Canberra-centric, you would still lose viewers as people want to see proper coverage of the greater Canberra region
Sure as did CTC news but news stories specific to say Dubbo like council elections would have Canberra viewers turn off. A generic story that might be based out of Orange on a medical trial would probably work fine in Canberra for example.
isn’t Dubbo already getting a regional bulletin?
Stories reported on a Canberra bulletin would need to have some significance to the Canberra or greater Canberra region, As an example a car accident on Hume Highway near either Illawarra Highway or Snowy Mountains Highway could be newsworthy to the greater Canberra region.
There would need to be a logical approach to the reporting. I think the current attitude is if its a big enough Canberra story it will be on metro bulletins
As someone pointed out years ago, filler shouldn’t be from other areas that are of no interest, but either national or international news stories, even if it’s just playing straight an international network’s report (e.g. from CNN International, BBC, ITV, etc.).
This worked well for Ten Capital News back in the day.
Yes there used to be a lot of reports directly from CNN for example which you do not see as much these days. Maybe a NBC reporter on Seven if something of significance happens and the US based reporters haven’t made it on scene yet.
NBN used to do this too, but obviously costs money.
Cheaper to source news from elsewhere in the network, even if it’s not really relevant. Pretty much all regional news bulletins do that these days.
And also, most (all?) regional networks broadcast their metro affiliates’ news bulletins, which already would contain stories of national and international importance. The regional newsrooms are assuming that if you want those stories that you’ll keep watching the product from The City. I don’t necessarily agree with this practice, but that’s how it is these days.
the most cost efficient way of doing things. I can see in the long term all regions receiving metro bulletins with a regional news window inserted just before sport in the regions local news is produced for, with say in the Sydney bulletins case, Mark Ferguson saying “now heres your local news” and then have a local news presenter featuring for a 5-6 minute segment, then an ad break then sport.
Dubbo gets their local news via the Orange bulletin. The bulletin, marketed as 7NEWS Central West, covers Orange, Bathurst, Dubbo and surrounding Central West suburbs.