7News TAS is moving out of their Launceston studio and will broadcast entirely from Hobart.
The network said bulletins would be presented from the stateâs capital city and put to air by a control room in Canberra, ending a more than six-decade tradition of Launceston-based bulletins.
âSeven Network Tasmania is evolving how it produces 7NEWS Tasmania, relocating its studio presentation from Launceston to a modern, existing facility in Hobart from May 2026,â a spokesperson said in a statement.
So it sounds like theyâve now gotten back their old studio space in Hobart that 10 was using for a bit last year, as part of the merger with SCA.
Shame about the (highly possible) loss of jobs in control room staff, however, as long as they are still getting a local bulletin 7-days-a-week, then itâs probably better for the viewers in the long term
Assume Kim and Nick etc will move to Hobart?
Good chance to get Louise back on the weekends.
The Canberra control room is interesting, as itâs not really a saving. They need to be live at the same time as the NSW regional news and would need to be additionally staffed on the weekend, so I wonder what they gain having that centralised.
Canberra would already have a second studio crew working at that time on the noodle updates, so shuffling the record times for those and using those staff on the Tasmanian bulletin would be cheaper than keeping the studio crew in Tasmania. The weekend adds a wrinkle to that, especially as Canberra stopped producing hosted weekend weather updates a while back, but even with a weekend staffing requirement it probably works out a bit cheaper than having the Tasmanian staff.
Hopefully, if any of them want it, some of the Tasmanian staff are offered and able to take a relocation to Canberra.
Very interesting change but not unexpected that they would shift control room to existing Seven facilities.
The move to Hobart will be one to watch - assuming they use their âoldâ Hobart set, perhaps Seven might modernise it a bit and automate the studio cameras?
Perhaps that will get pre-recorded?
To put this in mainland speak this is [distance wise] the equivalent of the NBN newsreaders having to move down to WIN territory. They should just build a studio in Campbell Town and be done with it.
With my MS hat on, historically it is sad that TNT will no longer have its base in the north of the state. From just what I have been able to post on my own youtube channel is an amazing legacy of content that regional stations can achieve.
With my real job hat on - and outsider experience - our former SCA7 sales rep [for tv and radio] got shifted to SWM when SCA sold 7. We then got a new radio rep for a brief period seperated from TV. When SCA and SWM got together we ended up with two sales reps from the same company. We then had to submit a credit application to Channel 7, who was back under SCA ownership at this stage, even though we have an existing account with SCA. FFS?!
The most recent response to my usual âwtf is happening?â question was âthey have to work out what is happening at the top, until then we have no ideaâ.
Obviously there has been a bit happening at the top of SCA7 recently, but I really feel for the whole team at SCA7 in Tassie right now. Whether they be in sales, advertising, reporters, camos⌠I have a relationship with all these folks and they all do such an amazing job.
I canât even imagine what they have been feeling with their uncertain job security over this period.
7NEWS Tasmania do have the advantage of they could be broadcasting from an iPhone in a shipping container outside of Marrawah, and as long as the set looked the same, nobody would notice or particularly care.
I hope things work out, for the on air team especially, with the studios relocating south.
So basically what could happen in the next 6-12 months.
Iâm not sure any of us had on our bingo cards for 2026 the upending of [probably] the two biggest legacy/remaining regional news bulletins still in existance.
Sad times, very afraid of where this will go from here. Sure Hobart is still in the state for now. TNT9 always been north tas based and suddenly rug is pulled from under them.
Does Hobart have a control room?
People do move for jobs.
It is a bit of a change from SCAâs old strategy too - at various stages the radio studio in Hobart got quite rundown and didnât even have a tech based there - the radio techâs from Launceston had to run down there for faults.
As most people know the populated part of Tasmania is an inverted L shape with Launceston being the apex, so itâs the best location for businesses to cover the island from. Parliament being in Hobart is one green light for SCM7 going there I suppose.
There might be a bit of blowback for SCM from businesses and some informed viewers in Launceston about the News moving to Hobart but when the competition there is only WIN its effect will be minimal.
A talent only TV studio(TOS) is about as good as itâs going to get in regional TV now - as far as I can tell the only regional TV studio control rooms left are Woollongong, Maroochydore and Canberra. It canât be long until SCM7 get rid of one of the latter two control rooms and TOS that place.
I love this explanation and the funny thing is, itâs pretty much true - apart from the debate it will cause like Nick and Andrew had on Hook, Line and Sinker about whether itâs pronounced Marra-war or Marra-wahh.
I had a thought last night though - if Kim and Nick didnât want to relocate and they were looking for others obviously Louise would be a great choice again but would they be able to finally poach Brent Costelloe from WIN News? Brent is obviously very loyal to WIN and has been pretty much holding them together for decades as the local face and is so well known around the Hobart/Tasmanian sporting circles with the JJâs etc⌠it would be a big coup for 7 and would they also try for Alex Johnston again? Is he still the head of WIN News in Tasmania? He was presenting for Southern Cross for quite a while back in the day before going to WIN and then politics.
I find the headline on one of our local news websites quite misleading. All people are reading is âlocal studio axedâ - instead âproduction moving to Hobartâ would have been a lot less alarming⌠and the comments reflect that around 98% of followers didnât actually even read the story, opting to change their channel to now watch Nine News haha. From a business stand point the move makes total financial sense and if Kim moves to Hobart to read the news, viewers will be none the wiser.