Todays finance update
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Horse Racing billboard
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I think Prime may head towards either a statewide edition in NSW, Vic and WA or have a northern and southern NSW and a Vic and WA statewide bulletin to cut costs. I think that Prime may also ask for early access to The Chase Australia so that they can screen local news at 5:30pm and not have to produce a condensed National bulletin in NSW.
Ultimately I think unless something drastic happens, local news will disappear from our screens altogether given the tough economic conditions
GWN7 Local News is already a statewide bulletin?
I wouldnât be overly surprised to eventually see âNorthâ (for the North West/Coast) and âSouthâ (for the Central West, Riverina & Border regions) editions of Prime7 Local News though.
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What on earth are you talking about?
WA bulletin has always been statewide.
VIC (Apart from Albury/Woodonga) does not have news bulletins at all.
The bulletins they do produce have massive market shares in their respective towns / regions - weâre talking 75%+ IIRC. Theyâre profitable and wonât be going anywhere.
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Economic pressures could force newsrooms to close down. Prime Media have not declared a dividend in a number of years, so if the bulletins are so profitable, where is the network losing money?
Prime Media need to eliminate waste or find additional advertising revenue from somewhere. Perhaps increase infomercial presentations or move them to more attractive times even if on secondary channels.
I would also consider dumping less profitable channels in the next contract negotiations. For the number 1 regional network in most markets to be losing money, they need to make drastic changes
Thatâs none of our business.
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Because they comprise of just 11% of the primetime schedule and 3% of the weekly schedule.
One hour of profitable content canât hold up a whole network
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Actually it is from a shareholders perspective
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Unless if you are a shareholder, then itâs not anyoneâs business.
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Do we have a source for âPrime News is profitableâ?
Thatâs really the question. And if they are so profitable, given they are meant to be the number 1 regional network, how and why donât they have regional news in so many markets.
I was questioned as to what I was talking about with statewide bulletins etc. I think that Prime should be looking at the opportunity to move back into areas such as Newcastle and Wollongong and regional Victoria through a statewide/multi-region bulletin. All they need initially is freelancers contributing one or two stories per bulletin and if it works expand from there.
Also given SCA screen news at 5:30, they could follow suit and possibly encore it at 7pm in 7Two. I am sure they could find another half hour show to screen at 6:30pm to help fill in the hour Bargain Hunt occupies (even if it is a H&A encore)
It can be profitable and not have news in some markets - in fact, not having news in some markets may be a contributing factor as to why the news could be profitable (or at least cost neutral).
Why would Prime want to turn some markets into three-cornered news contests? It dilutes dollars in what are already depressed media markets, for what gain?
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Newcastle currently only has one local news service in a composite 1 hour format eg local/national/international.
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Hence why I said âsome marketsâ - that said, Newcastle/Hunter is an interesting market - in theory, it should be able to easily support another news service (and as others continually say, in other countries a market of a similar size would easily support a much greater output), but in practice, NBN hold that tight a grip that itâs almost impractical to try and compete and itâs not like Prime havenât tried in the past.
Competing in that market means youâve got to have deep pockets and a willingness to play the long game - in the current climate thatâs basically impossible.
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The regional NSW markets are funny when it comes to local news. On the whole, the locals viewing habits show that they donât want competition in local news. Each area has its #1 bulletin that leads the market by a country mile and no competitor will even get a look in. (Eg. Prime in Albury, WIN in Wollongong and Canberra, NBN in Newcastle). This was evident from the launch of Nine news bulletins. The content wasnât too bad, but the market virtually refused to even acknowledge the existence of the news bulletins. When 75% of the audience tunes into a single bulletin, the others canât get the advertising dollars or local content leads that they need to make a viable product.
The markets would probably benefit from less bulletins. Competition doesnât encourage the broadcasters to make a better product to stand out from the crowd in these markets, rather it makes it harder to get local advertisers and local stories which makes removes resources and makes the bulletins more likely to get axes, as weâve already seen in many markets.
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The cost of such a move is why I suggested that they look at mitigating losses in other areas and look at points in the schedule where they may be able to provide more attractive time slots for infomercial presentations.
I think it would be interesting to see which channels (if any) are profitable and which ones are costing Prime money. I know if may be hard to say one channel costs $X and another costs $Y but if value can be assigned and enables them to eliminate or mitigate losses, then they may be able to steer Prime into a position to invest in programming
I was under the impression that WIN has struggled in the Illawarra & Canberra ratings in recent years, so much so that theyâve typically been third behind Seven News Sydney on Prime7 and whatever SCA Nine has been offering.
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WIN is third in the Wollongong and Canberra markets at 6pm.
After just 6 months, Nine News Local was ahead of WIN News when up against it in the 6pm slot.
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