Hmmm, maybe, I covered the perils of the “on Prime” tagging above - it sounds rubbish. WIN used a different voice to re-tag Nine promos in the early 90s and it was terrible.
In this case however there may be a cost implication with the voiceover artist, but I’m not certain. By that I mean, but creating a generic “tag on” you are robbing the voiceover artist of a potential recording session.
Best practice is to re-read a script for every iteration, so you might have a “This week on 7”, “Tomorrow on 7” and “Tonight on 7” version for the same promo. Each one should be read in full for a natural sounding flow (I used to do this for Prime and GWN many years ago). This takes time - and really Southern Cross should be having the same artist re-do a second batch “On Southern Cross” for every promo. Essentially, double the work for the artist. In my day, top artists were commanding over $500 per session (I’m sure it’s double that now) so the cost soon adds up.
I’m guessing the deal is “Take our promos as they are, delete but don’t add or you’ll have to pay”. Again, this is a supposition - I can’t think of another reason why SC wouldn’t do a better job on their promos.
Not only double the work for the VO artist, but double the time in the booth and for the recording tech, for essentially what’s not the network studio’s problem.
A mere entrant to the world of TV presentation would carelessly disregard this as amateurish or the work of a novice, however if one has studied the literature and taken the time to learn - no - to truly appreciate the art possible in the sponsor billboard, they would be floored by this masterpiece.
It is many things at once: basic, simplistic, yet at the same time highly meaningful. The gradient from white to rose to red provides a powerful statement that Southern Cross Television is broadcast in areas which produce many wines. Or is it perhaps a reference to the red of beef flesh compared to the white of pork and chicken - both varieties so commonly raised and slaughtered in the bush.
And what about the ‘Proudly Brought to You By’, you ask? Well, its appearance and subsequent disappearance is a statement by its creator, perhaps to suggest the fleeting nature of consumerism. This is in sharp contrast with the Toyota, and it is a meaningful choice, perhaps to suggest that the Toyota being sold to you is but merely a commodity that will soon be rendered obsolete by the forces of time and a new model in 2019.
Somehow I’m actually not surprised, knowing how Southern Cross (especially their Ten affiliates) has a long history of dubious quality Sponsor Billboards…
Schedule for Southern Cross in NT this Sunday (February 25)
6:00PM Seven News
7:00PM Australian Spartan series premiere
8:30PM Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games closing ceremony
I reckon Spartan needs to finish just before 8.30pm so viewers won’t miss out on the 10 second countdown to the closing ceremony.
All the complaints about the lack of creativity with the SC promos would be solved if the channels were renamed to Seven. It surely must be an option that’s been considered. SC seemingly had no hesitation renaming the SNSW, Vic and Qld channels to Nine.
I’m of the belief that the regionals can call themselves whatever they want on air since they’re paying for the content. Granted, if WIN suddenly identifying on air as the Bruce Gordon Powerhouse Network, it would sound ridiculous but they’re entitled to do it
SC rebranding from Southern Cross Ten to ‘just’ Nine is likely one of two things:
when you’re dropping the low performing third affiliate and need to try to differentiate from the affiliate you’re taking over from, you run with Nine
NEC has put in the contract that they must ID on air as Nine
I don’t think a rename to Seven will fix the problem of crappy pres. Nine had the same pres packages across Nine, NBN, WIN and Imparja and continues to do so, WIN has access to Ten’s material, same for PRIME/GWN and Seven.
Sounds like if SC actually asked they could get an unbranded copy of the gfx package. Then again aren’t they still running an upscaled SD channel marked as HD?
Sounds like if SC actually asked they could get an unbranded copy of the gfx package. Then again aren’t they still running an upscaled SD channel marked as HD?
Although they probably aren’t, I wonder if Southern Cross Tasmania are by any chance waiting for their relaunched news to do a “full” launch of their HD channel?
Not having access to a clean feed of Seven HD programing surely can’t be the problem, because Prime7 have to be using clean feeds of Seven programing in HD for their various versions of “Prime7 HD”!
It was reported at the time of their agreement that Nine required SC to drop all mention of Southern Cross on air and remain true to the metro brand. I’m sure someone here will confirm, but the SC9 sponsor billboards do appear to use Nine graphics. There is a side-by-side Wollongong vs Sydney 9 comparison kicking around on You Tube.
Many years ago (before the SC Star) it was doing the rounds in the industry that Ten issued a demand to SC to move their ‘core brand’ away from Ten’s to reduce viewer confusion. Before this, it was a horrible bastardisation of the network logo (this was when Tens Northern/Capital/Victoria/Queensland has disappeared).
As for SC7 - I do agree that 7 Tasmania, 7 Spencer Gulf and 7 Darwin/Central (as they were originally) makes a lot more sense.
The only logical explanation I can see is that either Seven has requested they brand differently or SCA thinks advertisers would be ‘confused’ when buying TV/radio packages. The latter seems unlikely.
I would have thought the mix of Ten and star logos that resulted from that demand created more confusion than any previous attempts. There was no consistency at all.
