WIN funded live local news in Adelaide and Perth when they owned the affiliates and it’s fair to assume with the awful numbers both got - they were not nearly as lucrative as NBN. So they have a history of doing live local news at 6 in composite format.
Nine chose to treat Newcastle and NNSW like other Nine stations with a live 1 hour composite bulletin as they know that’s the receipts for success in Australia. They could have run Sydney News at 6 and pushed NBn News to 530x, but they chose not to.
It’s fair to assume they would prefer win to keep the status quo - a strong live local bulletin. This will be better for nine (they get half of all ad revenue - so it’s in their interest that WIN has a winning 6-7pm for them)
Its all speculation at the money. My thoughts on why northern NSW will receive the same as southern NSW, Queensland, Victoria and Tasmania is based on 4 things
In northern NSW, Newcastle and Central Coast has a biggest share of the entire Northern NSW market and the Nine affiliate has no local news competition
In September 2022, it was announced that a locally produced edition of National Nine News would be produced and broadcast for Tasmania - this never happened, presumably because WIN and Nine couldn’t agree on who would be paying for it.
A 1 hour locally produced composite news product, whether it is 5 days a week or 7 days a week does not according with what the WIN network offers in other markets
The opinion that Nine feels the metropolitan produced bulletins are superior to the regionally produced bulletins - example National Nine News regional in 2017 under the Southern Cross deal, later being dropped and returning metro bulletins to 6pm with Nine Local News at 5:30
The replacement of what it on offer in Northern NSW is no more likely than the existing version being retained or a modified version being implemented. It comes to costs and whether Nine and believes that Nine News Sydney can retain the viewership that NBN News has. The fact is WIN won’t want to pay extra to access Nine News content for a locally produced bulletin and live crosses.
TV affiliates work a lot like owner drivers in the transport business, you carry their brand, the brand handles the jobs, you use the brands facilities but you supply your own vehicle, get paid by the brand with all fees deducted but you have a registered business paying tax directly to the ATO… Why should Nine be paying for someone else’s production especially if WIN owns the licence and has their own operation.
It makes no fiscal sense to Nine unless WIN chip in.
Exactly my point. I cannot see WIN wanting to produce a composite bulletin entirely at their own expense. WIN are likely to take the cheap way out and rest on their laurels. It will be interesting to see how long it takes them to rebrand NBN to WIN
I have heard that there is a major rebrand taking place at the moment for the whole WIN Network (including mappy and WIN News).
Will be interesting to see how/when this develops.
That’s what I’ve been wondering too eg in terms of those “You’re watching Channel Nine on the WIN Network” IDs.
And if any bulletins are done out of Newcastle or (as I suspect) they all come out of Wollongong.
Will also be interested to see what happens on the Gold Coast where 5.30pm bulletins would go head to head. Will WIN have to air the Lismore bulletin there as NBN does now to protect QTQ?
Given this change occurred during the pandemic, I don’t think you can read into that too much as a preference, it was just that the pre-recorded windows and trying to package up the metro rundown around that is much harder with the scale of breaking news and the limitations on resources that social distancing and lockdowns created.
I’ve banged the drum for years that it is not reasonable to ask viewers to sit down for 90 minutes to get their day’s news. Especially when the format of the split local/national means padding out a local bulletin with junk to fill runtime.
It’s why NBN’s format is much better than Seven’s local format, but at least Seven pair it with a 30 minute bulletin, paired back of irrelevant fluff.
WIN and Nine have made peace at this point - the channel’s even branded Nine now, we’re not in the coverups era and affiliation disputes. Nine’s success is WIN’s success, and a stronger local news is more advertisers and a better outcome for viewers.
The current WIN News product is bad - it’s dated, lacking local content, often misses major events and is thrashed everywhere it is in competition. NBN on the other hand is a powerhouse - they know how to do it, and Nine’s cutbacks have made it a lean operation. WIN did it just fine with the Tasmanian news for decades, they now have that expertise back with the NBN staff. It would be a major shame to waste that opportunity.
Those days are gone, back in 2007 NBN was sold for $250m, now it’s just $16m. I think that says volumes.
Reducing costs is the name of the game these days, there just isn’t the money to invest in regional news anymore. WiN does it cheap because that’s what it’s worth and that’s what Nine wants.
Nine and Seven very much see the benefit in strong investment in local news in WA, Tasmania, Newcastle, Northern NSW and across Queenslands. And in areas they do invest and produce strong product. The ratings double or triple WIN’s effort or piping in capital city news.
It’s not cheap if you consider how much revenue they will loose. It’s a very expensive option.
For the move to 530 to make sense, cost savings of the bulletin being downsized would have to be larger than the downsized revenue hit they would take.
It’s not. We know regional ad rates sell for about .75x what metro advertising sells for. And NBN News gets 2-3x the viewership of Perth And Adelaide. So you can come to some solid understanding of the economics based on that.
It comes down to: Are cost savings > the revenue hit from replacing a highly favoured local news with Sydney news at 6. And WIN will make the decision - not Nine. We know what model Nine prefers.
WIN pays for all of Nine’s content in the affiliation agreement - this includes news content. There will be no extra charge. If they pay Nine an additional fee fore access to reporters for live crosses etc, this could be cheaper than having than having to pay to make their own content.
I know that. But Newcastle and NSW have long been treated different as it’s a huge market and NBN News is dominant at 6. WIN News at 6 was never a dominant force out rating the competition by 3 to 1. Not even in Wollongong.
Nine could have moved NBN News to 530 and run Sydney News at 6. They chose to keep live local news.
Personally, Nine is a business - and NNSW is the 4th largest TV market. Nine will want at 6-7pm whatever gets the highest ratings as they get half that revenue.
the position “nine will want their Sydney news at 6 in Newcastle as they feel it’s a superior product” is emotional reasoning. I think they will Make the decision based on economics, not emotion.
I don’t see Nine forcing WIN to run Sydney news at 6, knowing very well ratings will crumble and revenue collapse. If they wanted local Sydney news at 6 they woukd have done that. They want the strongest option at 6.
we are all speculating. Nine could actually have in the deal that win needs to maintain the status quo and run local news at 6 - as Nine benefits with half the revenue. We don’t know what is in the deal.
Emotional reasons of win being win could point to local news at 530. My position is economic reasons point to maintaining the status quo. Time will tell
I daresay there is a contractual clause that prevents deviation from the Nine schedule re national sales, particularly in the 6pm til midnight slot - possibly part of the reason of All Australian News. The only real deviation in the WIN schedule as opposed to Nine is Tipping Point at 4:30 and Local News at 5:30pm. There isnt even Wild Fishing Australia at 4:30pm Saturdays any more.
The fact is neither WIN nor Nine have much wriggle room and effectively need each other. There cant be any conflict and realistically, if there was money in regional television, Nine would have retained NBN, regardless of the direction they want to go in.
Nine has probably considered moving local news to 5:30, but never followed through as they didnt want to look like the bad guy. Again I will point out 2 prominent axing since the start of this decade at NBN - Paul Lobb and Gavin Morris - both of which, more watchable than Natasha Beyersdorf - not saying she is bad, just that the other two are easier to take seriously - Natasha’s feels regional, whereas Paul and Gavin seem more metro suited
I hope it will lead to local news getting new graphics. They need at least a refresh. Some of the graphics look very outdated I’m not sure if northern NSW or Darwin will like the look of the outdated graphics of WIN News