WIN News

Wouldn’t TenPlay be easier (for the news)?

The problem with taking the Sydney news is that it will be one hour old starting next week.

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They could take it live and be “First At Four” :grinning:

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Bathurst Competition Codeword:

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I share your sentiments on this front, though WIN had a very strong presence in Canberra, with no commercial competition at 6pm and still packed up and moved to Wollongong. That and the network change has left them trailing in the 6pm ratings.

WIN would need two things to be able to take on NBN in NNSW:

  1. An obviously local presence - even it it were Coffs Harbour - anywhere but Sydney, Brisbane or the Gong.
  2. A strong lead in. The 5.30 shows have a MASSIVE impact on news. A large percentage of viewers don’t change channel at 6pm and they are the ones you need to reach. The ones who like a particular game show or whatever.

With these things in mind, WIN is in a pickle - as they lead in with a fairly low rating news bulletin and many viewers will be just getting home and put on Perfect Match or whatever, ‘until the news comes on’. These viewers are less likely to tune in to catch the last half of the 5pm news.

WIN is big enough now to take a new approach with news. But I don’t think they are brave enough. They could do a 40-ish minute pure national bulletin from 5.30 with a local window at 6.10 - like how 7 Adelaide and Perth insert Today Tonight. They could then make their own game show to run at 5pm or re-run yesterday’s Family Feud. This way you capture people who are home at 17.30 and ‘pop the news on’ - you also offer a different bulletin for those who just want the local stuff.

As things stand, WIN has been well and truly snookered.

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I agree in a way, but isn’t a 5:30pm news bulletin just as bad as a 5pm. As you pointed out people are getting home from work and lets assume they get home after 5:30pm, then they probably won’t want to miss the first part of the news. Alternatively, what could happen if WIN were serious, is if they went with a national news with local windows would be to place it at 6:00pm and the local news could be inserted at 6:45pm. If they didn’t want to do that, maybe WIN News would be best placed at 5:30pm with less important stories first. It will all depend on if they want to produce a news bulletin and whether they or Ten will want to trim The Project to half an hour at 7pm

To take another approach based on your ideas…
WIN could keep Ten news at 5, but only run it until 5:30. That way they keep any viewers who like getting news at 5, and also the people who are used to rolling into news after The Bold and the Beautiful. I don’t know how you’d cut it off at 5:30 successfully, maybe some co-operation with Ten could make this possible.

Then, move Family Feud to 5:30 - logistics would probably have to be the previous day’s show, but apart from Grant’s announcement of what’s coming up afterwards, no one would know, and that bit could easily be cut of with minimal clunkiness. This gives a lighter alternative to Hot Seat and the Chase for people tuning in at 5:30 or later, and helps to level the playing field somewhat going into 6:100:

Then at 6:00, WIN news. Run down could look something like Local news until 6:20, then sport (WIN presenter reading out for the sport stories that were missed by cutting off TEN news early). Being state based sport stories of reasonably general interest these are still very relevant to regional areas. (Local sport stories would have been included at the back end of the local part, just before 6:20. This is would then be followed by weather as per normal.

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WIN could use the same format as Prime and produce their own half hour news at 5pm and then as you said screen Family Feud, WIN News then replay the 5pm News at 6:30pm in the less popular half of The Project.

I believe WIN’s resources would be better spent on producing WIN Eyewitness News than WIN All Australian News. Perhaps if they feel the need to produced that, perhaps a 1 hour weekly roundup on Sunday morning pre-Studio 10.

There are more people watching television overall at 5.30 than 5pm, more again at 6 and 7. No doubt it’s a compromise to start at 5.30, but I think WIN would be mad to go head-to-head with a 6-7pm bulletin with the likes of NBN9/SC9. For exactly the same reason Ten moved to 5pm, you want to be an ‘alternative’.

At the moment, those who want to watch a one hour mix of LNI news can’t do it with WIN alone. If they were serious about news WIN would have to review their format.

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Completely agree with this, though I don’t think Ten would allow them to tinker with The Project - they’d have to work around that.

SCN Bendigo did this sort of bulletin rather successfully until the accountants got in an axed it. Local news first, then SCN ‘Eyewitness News’ - all read from the local studios.

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If WIN felt compelled to rejig it’s early evening news, and/or to launch 6pm local news in Northern NSW, this is what I’d do

5.00 WIN National News
(one bulletin for the whole east coast network, with local news breakouts integrated into it).
5.30 Family Feud
6.00 WIN Local News
6.30 WIN National News (one bulletin each for NSW/VIC/QLD/TAS).
7.00 The Project (a cut down 30 min version).

Ambitious maybe…

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Another viable option and you would need co-operation from Ten. Seven did this for Prime in the 90s. The Sydney readers would pre-record a special ‘outro’ for Prime each day, which was played before the local news insert at 18.25. This was slightly different as Prime cut off the last part of a 30 minute bulletin.

In Victoria Prime also ran the first part of 60 minute Seven news from Melbourne before cutting to the local bulletin, this may still happen and I’m sure there is a Victoria reading this who can verify.

For WIN, Ten would have to adjust their bulletin though and remove any mention of ‘coming up later in the bulletin’ which happens a lot in a proper 60 minute bulletin.

The only reason I can see Ten agreeing to this is if WIN could demonstrate it would improve ratings of the 5pm news and also that Family Feud would rate higher than WIN local news.

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Cutting off Ten Eyewitness News at 17:30 to run the local news would mean missing sport so that’s a non-starter.
Likewise I wouldn’t touch The Project, so it still has to start at 18:30.

Perhaps WIN could to do their own 30 mn combo local/national/international Eyewitness News bulletins (with local windows)?
Then it’s a question of if they want to run it head-to-head against Nine and Seven at 18:00 (with Family Feud on 11), or
at 17:30, which leaves a question of what to air 17:00 - 17:30; I suppose WIN could still show the 1st half of Ten Eyewitness News as the sport would be covered later in WIN’s Eyewitness News anyway.

The positives are:

  • Less local news expense as they no longer have to somehow struggle to fill 30 mn
  • They can start at 17:30 (or 18:00) meaning a better chance to get more viewers who have just gotten home
  • Viewers aren’t expected to sit through 90 mn to get the day’s news (a big ask for most), and
  • a 30 mn combined bulletin is now a differentiator (apart from ABC News of course)
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We did cover that Ten would need to adjust the bulletin for a mid-way opt out to accommodate WIN local. Sport could be moved to earlier or split (like the weather currently is on Ten).

The Project used to start at 7pm (in fact it was called the 7pm Project) - so there are no rules aside from those set by CBS. Certainly I agree you can’t “drop in” to The Project half way.

WIN could revive Wheel of Fortune if it wanted to. Simply a matter of commissioning a programme or buying something appropriate from abroad.

WIN News is barely 14 minutes long when you remove ads, titles and weather. There are stories out there, it’s just they are tied to a very restrictive format that doesn’t allow for things like in-studio interviews, live crosses or late breakers.

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How about something very simple.

A combined local, state and national bulletin at 6.

The first 15 minutes pre-recored for each of the 20 or so local markets and done out of Wollongong and Maroochydore studios with the biggest news of the day (local, national or international) and local sport and weather.

A seamless transition then into:

The back 15 minutes goes WIN Network wide and live, with the biggest national stories and another weather look at 6.28

Into Project at 630

“Win News” - simple, the only place you can get local, state national and international news in one 30 minute bulletin.

If New York can get local, state, international, sport and weather into 30 minutes - so can Albury and Cairns.

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Not just NY, Sydney and Melbourne had 30min LNIs for a generation. The trouble with a 30 minute consolidation for WIN is you end up with an hour to fill between 5 and 6. Perhaps re-runs of the Sullivans?

It is usual for the networks to have agreements with its affiliates about tinkering with its programming. For example, Ten would have had to sign off on WIN placing its local news at 6 rather than Family Feud. Obviously an easy sign off from Ten’s point of view, but it would have had to have been agreed.

There are many reasons for this sort of control - but the biggest one is for network sales. A lot of advertising is bought ‘network wide’. So, if Pepsi for example wanted to capture the 5pm news viewers nationally, it’s a single buy with Ten and WIN in one go. Ten wouldn’t want to have WIN muck around with the programming without careful consultation.

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What’s wrong with Ten News at 5?

Have we seen ratings of it across WIN’s stations’s compared to The Chase and Hot Seat to know it is not doing that well?

I thought that The Project was reset at 7pm. If not, perhaps a deal with Ten to edit The Project. If this isn’t possible, maybe air Family Feud at 5pm, then Win Eyewitness News as suggested - which could be hosted by Geoff Phillips with regional inserts from someone like Amy Duggan, similar to the cross that is done for News updates during the game shows, but she crosses back to him.

Win Eyewitness News could be re-screened later in the night instead of Win All Australian News. If Bruce has his heart set on maintaining Win All Australian News, perhaps a weekly edition could be screened on Saturday or Sunday pre-Studio 10 at say 8:30am on either day.

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