The only city in Victoria where Adelaide is the closest is Mildura. I have never lived in Mildura but have spent most of my life living in the North West. I think its fair to say that Mildura is happy to receive Melbourne news.
Mildura is on the Murray so boarders NSW so politically they would have to deal with NSW pollical issues more so than SA. Mildura TV licences area does not reach the SA border but crosses into NSW. Then you have the 30 minute time difference which has issues in itself with scheduling, Even if there was a small need there is not the money and people would prefer Melbourne news. If people in the area want SA news they have fortuitous radio coverage with some Riverland stations coming in at near local levels
Broken Hill does get the Adelaide bulletins on all 4 networks (excluding SBS).
Can always watch your preferred state bulletin on catch up, or even live streaming if you have a VPN (but I know internet connectivity can be an issue). Shame they are not on VAST though (for Remote/Eastern).
As a Canberran, would I watch a new Seven local news service? Probably not. Not live anyway…maybe I might skip through it on 7plus some nights to get their take on a story I already have some awareness of, but not most nights. I’m a millennial, for context, not that I consider myself typical of my generation on most things, but I think I am on this point. I’m still fond of linear TV but outside of a gameshow or sport rarely actually watch it.
My parents, who are both now old age pensioners, watch more linear TV than I do by a big margin, and they wouldn’t even watch a new local news service. They don’t even watch existing news bulletins (local or national) except on the very rare occasion that something in a promo for a news bulletin grabs their attention…and usually they then find that the details of the story don’t really match up with the hype from the promo, so lose trust in the bulletin and don’t watch it again for a long time. For them, five minute radio news bulletins in the morning is about all the news they consume.
The one bit of local news my parents do watch is local weather updates. They will stop everything if Daniel Gibson pops up on the screen with the weather.
I believe that if Seven were to introduce a local news bulletin at 6pm in Canberra, they would lose some of the existing 6pm audience to Nine News, wouldn’t gain enough new eyeballs to replace the lost viewers, and most new gains would be people skimming the bulletin on 7plus and not sitting through commercials. Financially I think it would be doomed to fail.
Familiarity of content. Seven News Sydney and Nine News Sydney are almost the same bulletin with almost the same stories with almost the same details and quotes in almost the same order presented in fairly similar ways. If people like watching Seven News Sydney because of these things, they may very well consider a local bulletin too much of a change and prefer something which feels similar to what they’re used to watching.
Anecdotally I’ve known plenty of people of my parents’ generation who have intermittently flipped from being staunch Seven News viewers to staunch Nine News viewers and vice versa because something annoyed them on one of the bulletins one night and so they switched to something which felt familiar to them but hadn’t annoyed them on that particular night. And then some months or a couple years later made the switch again for the same reasons.
So people in Canberra would rather sit and watch stories about car crashes and house fires in Western Sydney than watch equivalent local stories? I am not sure that I buy that to be honest. If you had a locally produced bulletin of comparable quality, why wouldn’t you watch that?
100% agree. 7TAS rates very well indeed - up against Melbourne alternatives - and is usually in the Top 5 most watched TV shows in the state. I’m sure NBN does too for that matter.
There was a huge outcry when CTC axed its 6pm Canberra composite. It was getting circa 80,000 viewers a night then - but not enough for Southern Cross, as they were regularly beaten by the WIN local/national news hour.
The bulletin that rated the lowest in Canberra back then? 7 News from Sydney.
Just saying, people don’t “choose to watch Sydney news at 6pm in Canberra”, but rather “there is no choice but to watch Sydney news at 6pm”
The TV landscape generally is very different to what it was 20 plus years ago, and young people have different attitudes and preferences (anyone around to meaningfully remember the CTC news is pushing 40 or well above now).
The issue with comparing 7Tas to Canberra is that there are a lot of difference in both the history and also the geography (Tasmania is physically separate from the mainland)
As stated, 7Tas succeeds because of the reputation and goodwill it spent a very long time building up. If it didn’t already exist trying to introduce something like that today as a new program would fail.
I’m not saying everyone wouldn’t watch the local bulletin. But yes I think there is a portion of the audience which will sit through Sydney car crashes and house fires to see the national and international news of a Sydney bulletin, and would rather do that than sit through a local bulletin filled with 70% unimportant stories about, for example, a community group on the other side of town which is increasing a line dancing class from once to twice a month. Local does not automatically make a story relevant to the viewer.
Is that the majority of the existing 6pm audience? No. Is it more than the new viewers which a local bulletin will attract to the linear broadcast? I believe so. (Edited for clarity)
Yes mate, I understand your opinion. Please understand we also have opinions.
I just don’t believe that an audience couldn’t be built up for a commerical TV bulletin. You yourself have noted that ABC news rates well.
I can’t buy into the fact that Canberra people are somehow that different from people in Newcastle or Wagga or Bathurst or wherever that they would actively choose Sydney news over a quality local 7 alternative.
I did note earlier it may not be in high enough numbers for the numbers to stack up, but I do think you could steal some of 9’s share at 6pm.
OK, this is nonsense. You are assuming that a local bulletin would only cover shit stories. This is not the case.
I was a cadet journalist at CTC and stories that were not ‘strong enough for our audience’ were avoided. We did say, very often, ‘that’s a WIN story, not for us’.
It is possible, even with our regional tiny brains, for news directors to make a good bulletin worthy of watching