I don’t think the sport reader on WIN news Illawarra looked too happy tonight probably shocked
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WIN has previously stated it costs about $1m annually for each of the 20 local news services it provides.
I really would be shocked if WIN removed local news in the key biggest cities like Canberra, Wollongong and Sunshine Coast. And perhaps a few others. If these cost $1m each to run a year - I really think they pay for themselves and more in ad revenue plus the halo effect on the channel overall of having local news. We could well see smaller cities in Queensland or Victoria lose local news eventually.
With the loss of Nine programming, confusion for viewers - WIN needs to keep some things stable and to their advantage - and having local news is strong point of difference for them.
It will actually work to quite well, with “national and state” news with Ten Eyewitness News at 5, leading into WIN News at 6. It puts WIN’s local news back in the plum spot of 6, rather than 7.
Say goodbye to the 9 News style music, opener and graphics. And hello to an all new look, or a Ten inspired look.
Yet to see if just the WIN brand is kept, if we see a dual WINTen brand (like Prime7) or if they just go with Ten.
WIN is about to lose news at 5am, Today at 530am, News at 11am, news at 3pm and News at 4pm.
I don’t think they will dump local news on top of that,
While they are already losing a hell of a lot of national news services, their decision to keep/dump local news is going to be based entirely on cost rather than whether they want to keep it or not.
If they’re getting lower ratings, making less ad revenue and paying out $1mil/year/market for news services, they’re going to have to cut some local news services eventually because they’ll become completely financially unviable.
Preferably I would like to see WIN keep their local news services in Canberra, Illawarra, Sunshine Coast, maybe Toowoomba, and a combined North QLD service for Cairns/Townsville maybe. But the other smaller bulletins will likely have to go eventually unfortunately.
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Agree, but all speculation right now.
We don’t know the details of the deal.
WIN was paying Nine up to 47% of it’s ad revenue. Even though there will be lower ratings, the new deal with Ten may not be as high as 47%, perhaps balancing out a little.
WIN will WANT to keep it’s local news, so perhaps they push Ten for some allowances in the agreement to allow for that. Not sure how.
But I agree - services in the larger cities will stay. In the smaller cities - likely go
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Of interest, I had forgotten about it but just reviewed it and remembered that under ACMA rules WIN will have to retain some local presence in most markets under law.
ACMA specifies that WIN are obliged to produce local content for Rockhampton, Toowoomba, Cairns, Townsville, Sunshine Coast, ACT, Central West NSW, South West NSW, Illawarra, and all of Regional VIC.
Many of those may eventually be converted to smaller “noodle updates” I suppose
all Australian news could be headed for the dust bin. No more local community news in that hour.
And I think local news will all be merged in one national / international news bulletin probably much like the NBN / northern NSW format. I believe all stations will use that model from now on.
30 minute seperate local news bulletins could eventually be a thing of the past.
Local television as we know now is almost history, never to be revived again.
Ten’s news runs outside primetime at 5-6pm.
I think WIN will want to keep it’s news in primetime as the 6pm hour has higher viewing levels than 5pm.
So I’m certain it will be Ten News at 5, WIN News at 6. Project 6.30
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WIN have had the Orange news bulletin for nearly 20 years I think. Would be a shame if it just stopped on June 30th.
Well it’s going to be very difficult for a regional network which airs ten network programs to be able to retain all news bulletins. And I see that orange already has a prime news bulletin, the future of win news I’m afraid looks shaky there.
Townsville, cairns, Albury, wide bay and Wagga bulletins could face the same fate as well.
Even Rockhampton and Toowoomba bulletins could be in doubt too now 7 Queensland’ has a news bulletin in those cities too.
I think the Rockhampton bulletin would have more of a chance of being axed before the Townsville or Cairns bulletins.
The Rockhampton market is a fair bit smaller than the Cairns or Townsville markets are.
The Rocky bulletin is also the only one that outrates 7 Local News I’m led to believe. That may be a saving grace. Not sure on Toowoomba’s ratings since 7 launched there.
I don’t know about some markets with competition for local news in the 6pm time slot but Ten News at 5 local at 6 Project at 6:30pm seems to be a strong lineup and it could actually grow ratings, there was talk on the negativity and Win News ratings falling in some markets when they shifted their news from 6:30 to 7pm.
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The problem with some markets is that 7 local news and prime news (not sure about Albury if it’s 5:30 pm or 6 pm) is already aired at 6 pm, should win news go back to the 6 pm time slot it will have to compete very hard for ratings, and WIN news may not recover in ratings in some markets.
Hmm didn’t Bruce Gordon raise the possibility of WIN news becoming a one hour news bulletin? If the report is true he could put WIN eyewitness news between 5 pm and 6 pm with a mixture of local, national and international news? QTV did that in North Queensland years ago and eventually had a 6 pm 30 minutes news bulletin straight after the ten eyewitness news.
Prime7 News in Albury airs at 6pm, which they have done so since March 2011.
As for Wollongong & Canberra, having WIN News at 6pm under the Ten affiliation would be beneficial for those markets, as under the present Nine affiliation, they don’t get local news until 7pm. In the case of Canberra, WIN News competes head-to-head with the local ABC bulletin in the same timeslot, in which the ABC wins the 7pm local news battle against WIN.
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If I’m not mistaken, Prime7 News in the Albury/Wodonga region is shown at 6pm as of 2011.
As for the prospect of WIN News airing at 6pm after July 1, I wonder if we could possibly see a one hour bulletin featuring local, national and international news in that timeslot? I think that (and joining The Project at 7pm) just might work, although I won’t be holding my breath for it to happen!
I think TEN would probably push for the Project to be shown in it’s entirety from 6:30pm-7:30pm.
I think WIN’s only options are either to do their own full hour from 5pm-6pm, or do a 30 minute local news from 6pm-6:30pm.
In Queensland where they have strong competition in 7 Local News in all markets and the far northern markets being so distance from Brisbane you would think a 1 hour Win bulletin at 5 might be their best option in Victoria where there is no competition apart from the North-East/Boarder and all regional centers being within driving distance of Melbourne having Ten news at 5 Local news at 6pm would be their best option. Southern NSW/ACT its not so clear cut as some markets have competition and others don’t
Now what makes you think that SCA would go to the effort of kitting out facilities in Townsville & Bendigo for TV News when they can capably produce bullies for markets from existing facilities in Canberra?
All they need is a bunch of new journo’s to take VJ positions and they are set.
Why wait?
WIN should move the local bulletins (as of this week) to the 6.00pm timeslot and move Nine News to 6.30pm. Get people familiar as soon as possible.
I wouldn’t be surprised if WIN starts pre-empting programming to damage Nine’s content (unless there are some restrictions in the latest contract extension).
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