Seven & Ten News (SCA)

SC News SA does an amazing job on and and online

It’s interesting to me that SC invests in local news in the tiny SA market, but not the large Canberra, Wollongong or Townsville markets.

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[quote=“KICK-IT, post:61, topic:239”]
It’s interesting to me that SC invests in local news in the tiny SA market, but not the large Canberra, Wollongong or Townsville markets.
[/quote]A couple of reasons:

  1. Being on the 7 affiliate means it rates well enough to be viable, same as with this Tasmanian bulletin.
  2. There’s no competition from other networks also doing their own local news.

Point 2 makes sense. Point 1 does not.

A Ten station in Townsville or Canberra still has higher viewership than a 7 station in regional SA

If it’s a legacy news service and it makes money for SCA, they keep it around. It’s economic rationalism at its zenith.

The bulletins in Canberra, Wollongong and Townsville were up against competition, running on a lower rating affiliation agreement, hence they got the axe.

When I was working at Prime Canberra in the mid '90s, Canberra was the only place in Australia (that I know of) that had 3 local news services up against each other at 6pm (TEN news was at 5pm in the cap cities). It was an exciting time for Canberra with everyone competing with each other.

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I think now that the SC stations in Queensland, ACT, Southern NSW and Victoria will all carry the Channel 9 brand and essentially be Channel 9 stations, Nine will be a bit more protective of their brand and especially the 9 News brand.

4.5 million Australians (or about 1 in 5) will now watch Channel 9 and ‘9 News’ on SC owned and run stations. That is significant. Clearly the relationship between Nine and WIN was not great, but now that these stations will be carrying the Channel 9 brand and 9 News brand, I expect Nine to have a bit more say and closely watch what SC does with the 2 minute noodle updates.

In years ahead, I would not be surprised to see SC launch a local 9 News for the Canberra market, with pressure and help from Nine. As media reform powers ahead - I think Nine will want have the 9 News brand strong in the capital.

Initially though, it will be 2 minute noodle updates - although it would be great if Nine pushed SC to run them in the 6pm 9 News.

I’d imagine as they ill carry 9 News branding, the rip and read format won’t work too well. Nine will want them upgraded a little - and they will push for that as they will now carry the big parent network branding.

Perhaps for some larger markets these 2 minute updates might expand to a local 5.30 News (like Gold Coast) or a 1 hour local news at 6 (like Newcastle and Darwin)

But from July 1, I do think these 2 minute updates will look and feel better undertake guidance of Nine.

Will they be branded

“9 Local News”
“9 News Canberra” etc?

Will they air inside the 6-7 news hour?

Will there be a promotional push?

Interesting times ahed…

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SC Tasmania have recently started using the new theme that Seven started using back in Feb on their ‘‘topical’’ promos.

I was really hoping they didn’t adopt it with this relaunch but unfortunately they have.

“Live” cross chroma key


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That Canberra studio looks awesome.

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Look like Tim Hatfield was crook last week so Aggie Bradshaw filled in. First time a woman has done it for a while, as Sam Hunt is usually the fill in.
www.facebook.com/SCNewsSA

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Worth noting that yesterday during ‘The Great Race’ in Tasmania they managed to switch to the Hobart studio with one of their tech crew doing sound tests… also, how long have Southern Cross News been doing local inserts during Sunrise for?

Southern Cross News SA has a new chroma key backdrop (3rd for this year). I will post a couple of caps tomorrow.

Also the Facebook page for Southern Cross News is about to crack the 10,000 mark. It is nearly beating a couple of the Adelaide news service Facebook pages.

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Caps of new chroma key backdrop used in Southern Cross News SA.


.

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I wonder if SCA in Victoria will air an SCA-produced 9News composite bulletin from Canberra (with windows for local news in Ballarat, Bendigo, Gippsland and Albury/Wodonga/Shepparton) or will they air GTV-9’s 9News bulletin (which WIN and its predecessors, plus Southern Cross Network in Bendigo and Gippsland in the days before aggregation, have done for many years and was a very top rating and highly regarded bulletin in regional Victoria)?

I do remember Ten News Canberra in 1990 seeing it once on a stopover in Goulburn on the way to Sydney, it was very professional, used the metro Ten News intros (although they kept the “Ten News” branding after “10 TV Australia” was introduced and the metro Ten stations reverted to the “Ten Eyewitness News” and later “Ten Evening News” branding). Geoff Hiscock was the main newsreader, don’t remember the female co-anchor, and it did not at all look like a hick regional bulletin with a cheap set. How times have changed, but hopefully we may see a return to a full hour bulletin in Canberra for Canberra when SC changes to 9 affiliation, with 9News branding and a set similar to the metro 9News bulletins.

I don’t get why SC News SA insists on using generic control room backdrops.

Why not use a key that incorporates images that represent the viewing area, the way ABC News does
For each state

Being local is what sets them
Apart - but they always go for these generic and badly executed control room
Backdrops

And where is the branding? Why no logo or Southern Cross News SA bug

It’s so generic and does not look like
Local
SA or SC news at all. Such a sham

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They cover like 6 or 7 ‘local’ areas so there’s not really any ‘local’ imagery that’d work anywhere.
I mean none of the regional networks use localised backdrops for that very reason. All those points you raised would apply to Prime and to WIN also, it’s just the way they operate given the limitations of no resources and such large areas to cover.

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7QLD use local backdrops on all 7 Local News bulletins throughout Queensland without any problem.
I actually think it gives a much more local feel having it.

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Well yes but they’re the exception to the rule.
NBN don’t.

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It’s easy. For Prime7, NBN and SC.

They just need to design a backdrop that allows for multiple screens and plasmas in the backdrop (which SC has) then fill those with local landscapes and images.

Southern Cross News SA has this week started posting live updates on its Facebook page using Facebook’s Live Stream feature.

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