Might be more for the ABC thread. But why doesn’t the ABC do more local news? Especially with iview. It should be easier to distribute. Even a weekly on demand show for different locations.
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The ABC are also reducing to only 5 local stories per night.
Damn that sucks, especially doing it the way they did.
A local news service isn’t much to ask in exchange for GTS/BKN having a complete commercial television monopoly - even a once a week magazine or something.
The isolation of much of their market area means so many issues will now just go completely uncovered, especially with an underfunded ABC cutting back as well.
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They may well have to soon - if more commercial stations drop regional news, they may have to pick up the slack. but they’ll have to increase funding for that to happen. I can’t see it happening.
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Lasted 10 years longer than the equivalent WIN service in Mount Gambier / Riverland.
Honestly surprised it took them this long.
Suspect they were getting next to nothing in ad dollars and engagement / viewers after chucking it on 7two.
Wonder if the noodle updates in markets where they are not legally obligated to produce them, like Central / Darwin will also disappear.
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It could be a tactic that east coast regionals use to try and “get rid” of local news bulletins eg. move it to a multi channel or somewhere that no one knows about, dumb down the content (which they’re already doing with filler and generic content) and “hope” the ratings drop to justify axing it.
I’m surprised they just didn’t move it to 5.30pm.
Not sure if Tassie has the capacity to do 2 bulletins at once. They could have pre-recorded it I guess
Yep.
Absolutely stupid decision putting it on 7two. Could have even put it on another main channel given it’s a monopoly
market.
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Is that James Brayshaw doing the Radio Rentals ad?
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I think it was a way of slowly “getting rid of it” as above. I suspect it was too expensive for them to keep doing it for such a small market.
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I’m guessing the reason it finished on a Wednesday is that many will be watching the Crows game tonight so won’t notice?
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It was pre recorded anyway.
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Regional TV news is failing everywhere financially because of the affiliation agreements: when you have to give 50% of your advertising $$$ to the capital city stations of course the local news can’t work. The advertising sold on the regional news would be the premium breaks they sell locally - 50% goes to the network and they don’t provide any content.
I feel for the staff particularly.
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If it was properly advertised whether it was on the 7Two should not make a difference. The whole concept of primary and secondary channels went away when analogue TV was switched off.
The media outlets are making a profit from the operating their licenses and with that comes responsibilities and that should extend to providing local news services of decent quality. If they aren’t willing to provide such a service they should have their license taken from them.
WINs noodle updates in SA ended a couple of years ago now. With neither market having any news quota requirement, wouldn’t be surprised if SCAs go too
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It does though. You can advertise all you like, but you still have to actually get people to make the effort to switch. You have an audience which had essentially been trained to keep the channel on 7 for their local news bulletin suddenly having to make a switch to 7Two in order to keep watching it, it was always going to result in a loss of viewers, proper advertising or not.
It’s quite clear that this isn’t the case, evidenced by the fact that networks are still prioritising their main channel for the majority of their first run programming.
This reminds me of the scene from The Newsroom, where Will McAvoy is delivering an editorial on the media, and he mentions the mistake that was allowing advertising in news (paraphrasing: for 23 hours, you can turn a profit, but for one hour, you work for us). I’m all for news as a public service, and the media should be doing more to ensure that they are providing a relevant news service for their broadcast area. But taking away a license won’t solve the problem. The smaller affiliates are trying their best, but with affiliate fees growing and advertising being affected by declining linear audiences, there is only so long they could run news at a potential loss before it has to go. And there isn’t exactly a large group of potential buyers lining up to buy regional stations and make that investment anymore. More than likely, it would just be sold to the network, and you would end up where it is now with no local news.
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Ok, then tell me why you don’t see Idol, Big Brother, or some major new drama premiere on the Seven multichannels? You may think the concept went away, but networks still see a flagship primary channel.
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Feel terrible sorry for all affected by this, especially the staff who are losing their jobs. SCA has done this in a particularly underhanded way too, and shown the Spencer Gulf/Broken Hill community a lot of disrespect.
As far as I’m concerned, the best solution would be to do something like the following:
-create 3 national commercial licences covering the whole country
-each licence is divided into markets, one for each of the metros, one for each large regional licence area (e.g. Ballarat, Latrobe Valley, Wollongong, Canberra etc) and one for each smaller licence area (Mt Gambier/Riverland, Remote Central and East, Spencer Gulf/Broken Hill etc.). Each market has a minimum service requirement such as 10 hours local programming per week for metro, 5 hours per week large regional, and say 1 hour for the smaller areas.
-require a minimum service of 1 main and 2 multi channels in each market
-failure to meet minimum service requirements results in potential loss of all licences nationwide, no picking and choosing
Hope that makes sense.