i thought it was the late 90s or early 2000s
It’s to my understanding that the Newcastle/Hunter and Wollongong/Illawarra markets have also received full local news bulletins from Prime until they were axed in June 2001.
No idea if Victoria (outside of the Albury/Wodonga region, of course) ever had such services though.
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Oh yeah, they did indeed. I’ve certainly seen videos of the Wollongong bulletin,
I’ll double down on my confidence regarding Victoria though.
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then my thinking must be wrong
i have deleted my posts . i do apologise. my thinking was wrong and iwas dreaming that western victoria had prime news service at some stage so one again im sorry
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Apparently at the time of aggregation, Prime built a decent studio in Ballarat, seemingly to house local news production but it never eventuated AFAIK (keeping local news in Victoria to just the heritage Albury station). I’m not even sure what happened to the building.
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What is strange about Prime7 is WHERE they chose to allocate their news budget and resources.
They produce 7 unique newscasts: 6.30 national edition, GWN7 WA, Albury, Central West, Tamworth, North Coast and Wagga.
Of these markets - the national bulletin that reaches the combined markets with a population of 1.2 million (taking out the Gold Coast) makes sense as does thew North Coast and WA bulletins
National 6.30: 1.2 million
North Coast: 590,000
GWN7 WA: 560,000
But then it gets interesting.
The Orange/Dubbo/Wagga market has just 420,000 - but Prime does TWO bulletins there, one Orange/Dubbo (Central West) and another one JUST for Wagga.
They then do another bulletin just for Tamworth (the whole Tamworth/Taree market has just 357,000, so the Tamworth market or that would be about half that - let’s say 180,00)
And then Albury market at 196,000 gets a bulletin.
So 3 of the smallest markets (Wagga, Albury, Tamworth) all under 200,000 Get their own full 30 minute bulletin.
Larger markets are completely ignored:
Newcastle 820k
Canberra 560k
Wollongong 540k
Ballarat 360k
Prime is allocating 4 of it’s 7 bulletins to 4 or the smallest markets it serves.
Albury with 200k gets a bulletin, yet Newcastle with 4 times the market size at 820k does not.
I know why: Tamworth, Wagga and Albury are heritage Prime markets pre-aggregation - and to their credit Prime7 probably does not want to abandon these markets.
But 20 years later after aggregation and, with regional stations at the brink of disaster and ready to pull news off the air they tell us, perhaps a re-alloction of what markets Prime7 spends it news budget should be considered. They should be producing and airing news in the markets where there is the most impact for regional Australians and the greatest ad revenue return. That is Newcastle, Canberra and Wollongong.
Tamworth Albury and Wagga could be continued to be served very with local windows.
It seems a re-organisation of where the news budget goes and how revenue could be maximized is due
These are the decsions of regional TV I don’t understand.
Newcastle is a market begging for competition, even being a distant #2 behind NBN - a Prime news there would get double the audience of a Tamworth bulletin.
Perhaps @PaulPatrick could offer some insight as to why in 2020 with ad revenue declines being the #1 reason Prime is struggling, why Prime puts its news budget into the markets with the smallest ad revenue?
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The building in question is in sturt st here in Ballarat and I believe it’s still going but think it’s only for booking ad revenue. I go past there quiet regualry
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While we are at it why then prime 7 introduce .prime 7 local news for western Vic? Could @PaulPatrick please explain ? If regional news gets more money it would.make sence to do this
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now last night laying bed thinking over if prime7 ever did had news here in western vic i fianlly realised i was getting my self confused with the fact that it wasnt prime7 that axed western vic news it was win news that took away the live reading for western vic and took everything to woolongong. when they did that win news changed and not in agood way
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Did not know that, interesting.
But why would regional networks anyway, when they can get it through their affiliation agreements from the metro networks, as the reported figures for these contracts in the past have been astronomical.
Apparently, according to Wikipedia, back in 1992 Prime7 had a purpose built facility / studio located towards the Ballarat Airport.
From my understanding, Prime were looking to expand its news operations into Western Victoria, with the possibility of launching a local news service, but I believe the financial numbers didn’t stack up and it never eventuated. I believe the facility was only used for local commercials and maybe some local productions.
Prime7 moved to Sturt Street in the early 2000s. It’s pretty much a shop front with Sales / Administration staff etc.
Does anyone else have any information?
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The old Prime Ballarat station even did presentation playout from there from the onset of aggregation for several AMD markets, with Albury playout moving down from AMV around 1993 and the later addition of Mildura playout when Prime brought the extra licence area. This all ended when playout was centralised to Canberra in the mid 2000’s. Today all Prime playout comes out of Media Hub in Ingleburn. The original Prime Ballarat station did some local studio production, but to my memory, no 30 minute local news services. The original Prime Ballarat building did have provision for 2 studios, one was only ever fitted out. To this day, relaying Seven Melbourne News has rated well enough to not justify the cost of setting up a fully fledged local news bulletin, more so not being the heritage incumbent broadcaster.
Prime once had separate presentation playout across many sites.
The original stations RVN Wagga Wagga and CBN Orange were still running local playout up until 1994. Canberra from the very start in 1989 only used to look after Canberra itself adding in Wollongong not long after as Wolliongong playout was also itself done locally at the very start. At one point, Prime Orange was able to run separate programs and ad breaks into CWN Dubbo, but that finished mostly when aggregation commenced. Pre Prime, CBN also used to relay out to MTN Griffith which also had its own playout facilty. But MTN was gobbled up by WIN when aggregation commenced even though MTN was never and still is not in an aggregated market.
NEN Tamworth playout still existed separately running playout for Tamworth and ECN Taree upto the mid 2000’s. Prime Newcastle playout started at NEN, but in a fully separate playout area with newer equipment as NEN/ECN playout was run out of a much older area.
Prime Gold Coast started as a fully self contained station with it’s own studio and playout area. They had no link connection with the rest of the Prime network until around 1993.
Prime Gold Coast playout moved to Tamworth around end of 1994 with Tamworth itself being centralised to Canberra in the mid 2000’s at same time Prime Ballarat.
GWN Bunbury playout was moved to Prime Canberra at some point, not sure when.
Now all gone although Prime still does retain its pre-Media Hub playout area in Canberra for business continuity if required.
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prime7 here in ballarat has rated and is rating well over sca9 and win. i think its time prime 7 tried bringing in alocal news services for the western region of victoria
Really great read!
Thanks for contributing and clarifying.
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Easter Ident
Whats On
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Sadly, will not be happening, even less so if Seven eventually gets to buyout Prime I would guess.
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I wonder if Seven/Prime could come to an arrangement to replay Seven Gold Coast News on Prime7 Gold Coast at 6pm, followed by Prime National News (or whatever they’re calling it these days) at 6.30pm? Bar the current Covid-19 crisis there is a lot of people who commute from Brisbane or whatever and aren’t simply home at 5.30pm. It be nice to watch it in HD too which Seven doesn’t (it airs on Channel 7/71 exclusively while Channel 70 has ‘The Chase Australia’.
Not everyone wants to watch the Newcastle centric NBN News to watch the local windows which is mostly filled with Lismore and Newcastle news filler.
In 1998-99, Prime and Seven had a joint Gold Coast bulletin (Seven live at 5.30pm and Prime delayed at 6.30pm) and just changed the name graphics from a 7 logo to a Prime logo depending on what channel you were watching.
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GWN moved from Bunbury to Canberra in April 2005.
The picture quality on GWN7 news is dull. The standard of the bulletin has dropped significantly in the last 10 years. The only thing propping it up is the quality of Noel Brunning, even he is looking like he’s ready to move on.
Agree with the above statements. Prime need to reconsider their affiliation costs with Seven.
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I can’t see Seven wanting Prime to show Gold Coast news in competition with their main 6pm bulletin.
The bulletin isn’t produced in HD so it would only look marginally better on a HD channel.
It offers their viewers a choice - if the want to watch a game show instead of news, it is available and the ratings reflect both sets of viewers.
Nine shows their local news on 9HD on the Gold Coast.
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