with Perth being 3 hours behind Sydney, where the bulletin was produced, you can notice the darker windows.
only half of the desk that would’ve been used on the Sydney bulletin (then presented by Ron Wilson and Jessica Rowe) was used, with the other half (which Tim Webster would sit at for sport in Sydney) used for Sports Tonight. This desk you see was also used for the Late News, though would be switched around.
the background prop you see here was also used on the national weekend bulletin (I think Perth might’ve also gotten local weekend bulletins from Sydney at this time, too). This also differentiated it from the Sydney set-up wherein a global prop was used and seen between Wilson and Rowe during wide-shots.
by 2005, both the Sydney and Perth bulletins used the same desk, though the Perth bulletin used different camera angles/shots and didn’t utilize the television screen as would be seen when Ron Wilson was on shot in the Sydney bulletin.
Wilson also presented the Perth bulletin in 2004, before Tim Webster succeeded him in 2005 which meant double duty for these men following their roles on the Sydney bulletin (Wilson news, Webster sport).
Hence the “First at Five” slogan - though I wonder what it explicitly meant - whether their 5:00pm bulletins gave a point of difference against the 6:00pm offerings on Seven and Nine wherein 10’s flagship bulletin aired before the two of them, or whether they were first in their timeslot ratings-wise.
If they hadn’t, Nine’s bulletins (or Seven’s in Adelaide/Perth) wouldn’t have attracted the large numbers they got in the 90s/early 00s. However with the way things are going at the moment, 10 would be lucky to even get 100K+ in each market in the 6pm timeslot these days.
they were sort of pushed into a corner where they couldn’t stay at 6.00. Seven and Nine had such dominance that Ten, with diminished resources compared to previous years, having had to slash budgets and being in receivership, had little chance of getting any edge over them.
The move to 5.00 gave it a clear point of difference and it worked for many years, serving as an alternative to whatever Seven and Nine dished up, and giving viewers not interested in news at 6.00 an additional option.
How I fondly remember the CNN-exclusive days of 10, and their overnight service.
I wonder if you are 10 in 2024, if you’d go for an edgy overnight service (maybe similar to how Anderson Cooper started out with something very loose overnight) and built a following? Mixed in with advertorials, of course It could be a Studio 10 of overnight.
It could be a Studio 10 of overnight.
