Exactly, the Seven Sydney metro bulletin on Prime in Canberra would be missed, as it was first time around back in 1993 with that cruddy and cheap local replacement out of Watson was mostly unwatchable. As to why Seven would remove it again in Canberra would stump me. I do not think Seven will be that stupid. They may insert a 5 minute local window if they are made to to fulfil any lift in local content quotas with reads pre-recorded by the metro newsreader(s) so as to keep up the higher production continuity and feel, but that’s it. The metro bulletin has the benefit of incumbency in areas like Canberra, Wollongong and regional Victoria outside Albury. Same as the likes of Tamworth, Orange, Albury and Wagga, the local 6pm has the benefit of incumbency and is why they will most likely stay. Albury already gets a cut-down Seven Melbourne bulletin turned around at 6.30pm. No doubt the same will now occur for Wagga, Orange, Tamworth, North Coast getting the Seven Sydney bulletin back as a 30 minute cutdown at 6.30pm.
If Seven did move Seven Afternoon News to 5pm, there would always be the option for Canberra, Wollongong and Newcastle to have either a half hour bulletin at 5:30pm or a local window from 5:45pm noting a full bulletin for those regions at 6pm. It would also be good for the other regionals that have local news at 6pm followed by a shortened Seven News.
If I was Seven in regional markets, if they are going to the extent of editing the Seven News at 6 bulletin for stations such as Tamworth, they could air the same at 6:30pm on 7Two in Newcastle, Wollongong and Canberra followed by their regions local news.
Alternatively, if Seven followed the all in at 6pm for local news, perhaps in regional areas, 7Two could screen the full metro bulletin at 6:30pm and offer an alternative time for Home And Away as an encore on 7 or 7Two the following afternoon after its first run episode is aired (see my most recent mock schedule as to how this could work on the main 7 channel)
@WAtvVideos Is Noel Brunning presenting in WA again?
(I can’t reply but horrah, faith in this thread has been restored)
Noel Brunn… nah I’ll stop now.
Edit: Nicholas! You beat me to it 
Edit 2: Indeed it has!
Not sure if we are doing a mindset of Noel eventually approaching to his retirement day as a news presenter at this point. 
The coast would look very clear for Seven, I believe, once that day happens.
Statue of Noel at the GWN headquarters upon his retirement???
Good ideas, but too much messing around with the schedules there. Best to keep the regional schedule as unified as possible with the mtro schedule. Especially when the the likes of live sport runs over.
I can’t see The Chase AU being displaced from it’s current timeslot.
However, I can see merit in areas that straddle state borders splitting the main channel SD and HD simulcast to say run the existing state bulletin on the SD service and the alternate state bulletin on the HD service. So in Albury, you would get the existing local bulletin at 6pm, followed by the 6.30 Seven Melbourne bulletin cutdown on the main SD service and on the HD service you would get the full Seven Sydney bulletin. And for Shepparton and Mildura, same, except they would split for the whole hour with the existing Seven Melbourne bulletin on SD and the Seven Sydney bulletin on HD. Technically would be tricky to set up, but solve an age old problem with transmitters that serve overlapping state borders. With the low cost of on-site cloud based playout IP technology, would not cost that much more to set up when playout eventually moves to NPCmedia.
Or maybe as the new backdrop in the GWN bulletin, his head slowly moving across behind the presenter?!
I like the idea of custom scheduling for the handful of ‘state line’ markets, but I don’t think breakaway programs on SD and HD and vice versa is the way to do it. We’re meant to be exiting out of SD simulcasting. If they want to go to the lengths of having different bulletins, schedule them on 7TWO or something. Surely Bargain Hunt is an acceptable loss in Albury?
I agree, it would give viewers a chance to see the full bulletin regardless of whether its on the main channel or a secondary channel. I believe Bargain Hunt on 7Two is shown Monday to Friday between 2 and 3 times a day on 7Two.
I know this is a Prime7/GWN7 and (aka Seven regional NSW, Vic and WA), but if you consider WIN TV and NBN TV having their local news productions at 5:30pm and 6:00pm respectively showing it can work
Why single out Shepparton and Mildura every market borders or comes really close to bordering on either SA or NSW also Surley with Mildura closest capital city being Adelaide they would get Adelaide news over Sydney. This would also confuse viewers or upset them over PQ of Melbourne’s news and cause people to move to 9
Agreed it will just confuse people put it on 7mate which hopefully will be in HD soon and be done with it and promote it via a crawler to switch to watch alternative news
It’s true, key FTA viewing seems to be 5-8.30 now, or 9. And 9 it falls off a cliff. And you’re right people do not lock onto a channel all night. However a station with a strong local news almost always performs better than one without. This can be seen night after night in ratings data and James Warburton said exactly this when talking about launching new local news services.
Look at all the stations that have a dominant market share around Australia. GWN7, 7 Perth, 7 Tasmania, 7 Queensland and 9 Newcastle are the highest rated stations. All have a strong dominant local news. A station with a strong local presence and connection becomes the go to station in that market. We see it every night with the same programming in Perth rates significantly higher than Sydney on 7, because it’s on the dominant station with a strong local community connection.
Conversely when you look at stations in Sydney or Melbourne. There is no dominant station. It’s neck a neck. Because there is no dominant news. Neither is the go to hometown station. But if either 9 or 7 did NOT have a local news, the rival would rise and be market leader
In an age of national and even global content and Brands like netflix, binge. Amazon, Paramount, HBO - one of the only things the FTAs have the others don’t is local news. That’s their domain for the Immediate future.
Granted - any success in launching local news would not come over night. Or even in a few years. The dominant 7 Queensland’s of the world took 20 years to get there. But it’s lasting strength.
If you look at the lowest rated stations in Australia - 10 Northern NSW, 10 Victoria, 10 SNSW, 9 WA etc - the one thing they all have in common is no local connection to their market. No local news. All these stations underperform the national benchmark for their respective network. Having local news and a local connection to the market not come cheap - but the benefits can be far reaching and long lasting.
The irony is these stations don’t bring in enough revenue to support local news (some of them were incumbents and did have local news like NRTV and SCTV and couldn’t make a go of it with increased competition even in pre Foxtel and internet days). In American terms, it’s kinda like a CW station trying to do local news against dominant CBS, ABC and NBC stations.
Also joint venture stations have their own issues. Like I don’t see Seven contributing funds to WIN so 9 WA can have a bulletin.
Theres also the argument that nobody is watching 10 affiliates for local news but it comes down to who’s running the show (WIN could make local news on 10 work in a lot of their markets but for some reason SCA see no value in it, but for WIN it’s a pride and historical thing).
Seven on the other hand have managed to establish bulletins in Rockhampton and Toowoomba that were long dominated by WIN and make tonnes of ground.
Sad. BCV8 and GLV10 used to be very close to the Bendigo and Gippsland community, and now they are nothing more than a relay.
I also agree this statement, otherwise the reality shows would screen until 9pm or later every night as the concept is cheap for Australian content. Every commercial main channel end their realities somewhere between 8:30pm (on a good night) up to around 8:50pm normally to give viewers a taste of 10 or so minutes of the show after the reality show.
I would like to hope I am wrong, but I think the reality is local news will disappear in the next 10 years unless the networks can secure more advertorial contents on its channels and possibly lose a secondary channel to ensure profits for the respective owners.
The issue isnt the FTA commercial networks, its the number of streaming services that are available to viewers, meaning the competition is fierce.
I think all that have posted would like to think that all regionals will end up with local news bulletins but the harsh reality, the networks will only invest in markets it thinks it can be at least competitive.
No one wants to be lower than number one
The flip side for Seven is positioning themselves for the gamble that yes, local news will not be directly profitable long term, but that there’s strong enough political will to ensure its survival on air.
I fully expect that strong public subsidies will be implemented over time, it’s just a matter of surviving long enough to be in the position to benefit from that.
The value of television is increasingly going to be near exclusively in being a news source and local content - both things that will be subsidised through things like a long term PING replacement, the various screen/film funding bodies, etc.
It’s that or hold on on a shoestring until you can cash out of your spectrum…
Hannah Scott presented tonight’s noodle updates
How well did the condensed Seven News Melbourne bulletin in the Border North East region cover the wild weather events and yet another arresting of former Channel Seven game show host Andrew O’Keefe?
I don’t live in the area so couldn’t tell you exactly how it looked tonight, but it’s pretty easy to get a good estimate. The cutdown of Seven News for Albury is a simple cut at the end of a package after approx 10-12 minutes of the first segment. Unlike Maroochydore’s efforts for regional Queensland, there’s no editing and rearranging of news items for Albury.
They also don’t get the full opener. They join the bulletin at the voiceover just before the presenter(s) appear on screen.