Not sure if I agree with “First” being a major part of Ten’s heritage. If there’s any TV news service which is genuinely first, it’s either Nine or Seven depending on the history in your individual local market.
Also, perhaps it’s understandable that Ten don’t want to re-enter the 6pm news market. They didn’t have any success competing against Seven & Nine in the past, while the 5pm news timeslot has become part of Network Ten’s DNA.
But at some point in the future, I personally hope to see Ten air later weeknight local news bulletins to tap into the growing commuter markets (particularly in the East Coast capitals) who quite simply, aren’t home in time to catch the 6pm news on Seven & Nine in full let alone Ten’s 5pm news. Something that’s fast-paced, snappy, capital city/metropolitan market-centric while still updating viewers on state/national/international content…you get the idea.
This is open to interpretation but for me personally I have always associated the first with being the first nightly broadcast. Not first with the “big stories” or “exclusives”.
“First at 5” was created at a time where there was only the evening news and late news. Later on we started to see introductions of early, morning and afternoon news which then the “first” became majorly irrelevant.
I guess so. But personally, I strongly associate the words “First” and “Television News” with history and ratings.
Although it’s fair to say that many elements of the Australian TV news landscape we have now was developed during the 1990s and 2000s, I was personally under the impression that there were morning news programs on Australian TV before Ten moved their evening news bulletin to 5pm.
That’s actually the first thing I thought of when I read his comment, intersting analogy to use given the position Coles & Woolies are in with the new kid on the block catching up to them.
The other thing is that James whatshisname at MediaWeek (as usual) didn’t ask the natural question - having News at 5 and 6 has NO impact on their First branding. They would still have the first at 5 legacy thing. That whole argument the Ten guy gave is nonsense.
If we want to think about how to supply the linear channel while driving online content - where most video ends up as clips in any case - we probably might not need to have every single bulletin as one of general local or general national interest.
Target young adults with a daily news program at 3pm - focus on macroeconomic, social, tech and other topics to grab those in their 20’s. Maybe even have a weekly BBC Newsround-type program for even younger tots. Retry the late newsmagazine format at 10pm and then really push into rich multimedia on the stories with 10daily. And if people love Australian Story so much, fire up a POV documentary team and compete against the ABC - they’re boring into 10’s audience as anyone else is. And then, perhaps take a little inspiration from all the above and incorporate it back into 5pm.
I personally would’ve made a case for Nine News Queensland being the Aldi of Australian TV news, since they’re notorious for “Special Reports” on that particular supermarket chain!
TTN revival?
I’d probably say that Behind The News on the ABC is our equivalent to Newsround.
I’d say the same at the moment about adding any broadcast bulletins to the schedule.
If you want to increase the value of the whole of 10 - News, Daily, Speaks - you have to plan your franchises with as many platforms as possible integrated. TV for TV’s sake will not generate enough returns in 2018 and beyond.
