30 seconds to 1 minute is the length that best serves what SCA is cooking up, 90 seconds max as per the first and last updates.
2 minutes worth of micro stories is too long; it’s boring. The content is update-style, so it’s best to keep it to a length that an update would normally be.
No more dancing while sitting down? 
I didn’t get what she meant by that, either LOL
I think she meant to say drinking rather than dancing.
Not sure what happened with 7Tas news tonight but it started quite late - nearly 2 minutes. We had the full 7 Melbourne news intro, first story intro and it was well into the first story before an abrupt cut to the start of the Tas bulletin. It wasn’t mid-story or anything with the Tas one, it was just like a normal start but a bit late. Not sure if it might have been because The Chase was a low scoring one but I would have thought that would have all been sorted with scheduling prior.
This morning’s updates:
Sunshine Coast
Orange & Dubbo
Border North East (Albury/Wodonga & Shepparton)
Tasmania
They really need that headline bed to go through the whole update, it gets a little stale in the middle though vision helps a little with that but they stay on some for far too long - take the flooding footage for example.
All of them are not bad, Sunshine Coast probably the weakest with Makenna to be honest. Tasmania well looked after by Alex as usual. Sophie is not bad either but Grace Evans will go places, she’s excellent.
I’d be curious to know who Makenna’s back-up newsreader is for the Regional QLD updates - either Tiarni Reid (who has presented the weekend weather reports on 7 Tasmania News) or Victoria Eastoe. Madeline Kerr is the back-up newsreader for the Southern NSW and Canberra updates, Kasey Wilkins the back-up for the Regional VIC updates, and Ruby Commane for Tasmania/Darwin & Central Australia.
Personally, I don’t think Makenna’s a bad newsreader (she’s obviously quite young) - Sophie has improved immensely since she first started, while you’re spot on with both Grace and Alex - both are excellent presenters
For young journalists and newsreaders they’re not bad. They also have quite a lot to do with the other states compared to Alex with Tasmania only. I’m guessing there’d likely be a couple of people researching for each of the regions but with Tas it’s probably less dedicated but also more with access to the 7 Tas newsroom.
Makenna is an interesting one, I think she’s really good for the newsreading but there is something different, I’m not sure whether it’s just as simple as a bit more facial animation but for regional updates and compared to what there used to be, they’re all pretty good for the number that are being pumped out each day - I’d imagine reading the same story several times for each one in each state would be quite boring. e.g. the daily COVID numbers/news going into every region.
Makenna has a unique style whenever she signs off on the final update - e.g. “That’s all your news for today. I’m Makenna Baily. Have a good night.” In the morning update, she introduces herself, “Good morning, I’m Makenna Baily with your local news update.” In the afternoon updates, she just says “Good afternoon” or “Hello again.” with no introduction. I think that’s a unique (and amazing) presenting style 
Grace Evans is filling in for Alex Sykes on the Tassie, Darwin and Central Australia updates today. Here’s a Darwin update with Grace presenting from tonight
She sounded like every sentence was a question, given the upward infliction at the end of each point. Other than that the update was quite good, I’d say she spoke a bit slower than usual, maybe trying to stretch the content to fit the time?
Grace has presented the Tassie updates in Alex’s place before, but I believe this was her first time reading the Darwin/Central updates.
It used to be Louise Houbaer IIRC.
Speaking of Louise, she has returned from maternity leave.
This comes down to Confidence. Alex has some pauses and odd inflictions but she presents confidently with a mature voice so it’s not as noticeable, Grace also presents with Confidence and Maturity
Sophie sounds young and unsure but she will get better with more experience and voice training would help
It is good to see her back, we miss her on Spencer Gulf
I bet it’s only a matter of time now until Peter Murphy retires from reading the weather on Seven News Tasmania. He seems to be absent a lot and barely shows up. That was also the case with former ABC News Melbourne reader Ian Henderson leading up to his retirement in October 2018.
Prerecorded cross failed to play last night and you can hear two voices telling Lou to “read on”. Barely missed a beat.
