The issue is Win made next to no effort to adapt to a changing market and new technology. The boring as batshit bulletin is more or less exactly the same as it was 30 years ago.
Everything should be uploaded. Where’s the community building you see on ABC regional Facebook pages? Where’s the Win podcasts on local issues and local champions? Where’s the email newsletters?
The owners don’t give a shit about the communities they serve - they’re happy to take public funds and run the business into the ground.
How have people in suburban Sydney been able to survive without getting the local football scores and daily news about their local council on the television news. They have, as the information has always been available from other sources such as the local paper and The Sydney Morning Herald if they wanted to know, and there has never been any expectation that it would appear on the television news every night.
Would it be great if more community-minded news made it onto television in Sydney? Of course.
But with the number of LGAs in our viewing area, our TV news services are rarely going to cover council issues unless something big happens like a major corruption scandal or a certain ex-Deputy Mayor doing something ridiculous again. Quite understandably, the main players in Sydney broadcast media generally focus on covering stories which are of interest to the largest number of people regardless of whether they live/predominately spend their time in the mountains, suburbs, the city or coast.
Times are tough at WIN. They couldn’t afford the petrol to get down to WIN Stadium for a cross regarding the Jack De Belin case so they stepped outside the WIN HQ front doors.
… bit like the ABC in Adelaide a few years back, they did a story about something happening in the outback and did a stand up from a spot in front of a bit of dirt in Dry Creek just down the road …
On Wednesday, the Federal Communications minister Paul Fletcher indicated the government could ask for money back “if there is a breach of the grant agreement” . The grant running was due to expire on August 27.
Surely they’ll just replace All Australian News with a repeat of the statewide bulletins? The whole point of creating AAN was to reduce costs associated with compiling and filming three separate statewide “Late Editions” and replace them with a single product that served a similar purpose.
With WIN cutting the local bulletins and replacing them with statewide versions, there’s likely no real benefit to spending money on compiling and filming AAN when they can just repeat the statewide editions and get essentially the same product.
I’d not against WIN going statewide, but there has to be change to the presentation style WIN has been following for the past 30+ years. Live with crosses, fast paced, inject some personality and creativity and cut the hyper local stuff.
There’s four studios available in Wollongong IIRC, ideally the three state bulletins should be live (QLD, VIC and TAS) and one of the SNSW/ACT to be live whilst the other pre-recorded. Also given there may be cost savings from moving to 1VJ or 1 journo/camo per region instead of the 4/3 in most regions, would it be viable to use the Maroochydore or Hobart studios to guarantee a live product for all bulletins?
I’d also rather see the Queensland bulletin be split into two regions. 30 minutes really isn’t enough time to cover stories from such a vast area. Would 1 hour local state news with a 30 minute cutdown metro ala Prime7/7QLD work?
Has there been any word on whether a journo will be reinstated in Mackay or Bundaberg/Maryborough?
As others have mentioned, WIN really needs to begin transitioning to more of an online presence for news. Start with the basics of having a proper news site or integrate with 9 when the affiliation deal switches. Uploading or live stream bulletins to get more eyes on the product. Simulcast on radio etc. It’s amazing how many people throw comments up on their various socials questioning if bulletins can be watched outside of being home for the 6pm bulletin.
Perhaps i98FM in Wollongong, which WIN owns, would be a logical starting point to simulcast WIN News Illawarra on at 5:30pm weeknights (at least from July 1). Given it’s the #1 radio station in the region by quite a long way, including during drive time, it does make sense.
I’m not even sure what exists in Hobart now in terms of studio space, last time I drove past the ABC building in Hobart there were quite a few businesses and organisations in there, prior to that and when the bulletins were still locally made I think there was only ABC, WIN and TDT in that building.
