Nine (WIN)

They’ve got to do something beyond scheduling archaic mini-series and ramming their brand down viewer’s throats. Must be a dire place to work for these days.

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:slight_smile: You are very right. I remember many years ago Prime was going through a similar bad patch. They had a god awful brand and tag line (This is where we live…). I remember I interviewed there for a job and asked them ‘What’s up with the brand?’ I think I offended some of the programming executives who said, ‘It’s in the best place it’s ever been’. That was about 20 years ago and Prime has come a long way - while WIN seems to have regressed.

WIN’s voiceover is very old fashioned, the news music and presentation is exceptionally stale (except for Bruce Roberts and Lincoln Humphries) and of course everyone hates that silly map thing.

The trouble is, Bruce thinks he can programme his ‘network’ in spite of his audience - the reality is he really should think about appealing to them.

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In the early 90s Prime had similar branding to Seven but when started (this is where we lived) it was such a let down. But they have come a full circle and look fantastic again. Who’s god dam awful idea was the this is where we lived idea anyway YUK

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I don’t know where the slogan came from, but it was probably developed to say we are local your station.

It was at a time when all the stations were still producing some local content (such as half hour news bulletins) for the stations, but generally carrying metropolitan feeds.

Win in the late 80s and early 90s had a kids cartoon show called ACE on Saturday instead of Nine’s Cartoon Company. Prior to aggregation it also aired a weekday show at 3:30pm, the ad for this show was also a tacky ad.

I think the regional stations in general did tacky ads in the 1980s and 1990s (probably a hangover from having only 1 commercial channel in most regional licence areas in Australia up until 1989)

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Prime and WIN’s branding were god awful at aggregation in '89 - but lifted their game in 1990 as the Ten Network re-branded CTC with the X logo and subsequently TV Oz.

Here’s 1989:

Versus

and

Here’s 1990

Versus

and

My argument with the programmers at Prime was along the lines of “If you’re showing the exact same promo in Victoria as you are in Bunbury, how can you say it’s “local”? It’s just generic!”. You are right though, they were trying to make out that ‘local’ television was in some way better. This attitude developed at the time when pay TV was coming in to Australia - and country viewers were turning to Galaxy (as it was then known) in DROVES.

It’s worth noting that Capital stopped producing local news in the Illawarra in 1989 and never produced local news in the Riverina and Central West - whereas Prime were big investors in this area. So they did have their money where their mouth was on the ‘local’ front!

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2 posts were merged into an existing topic: Prime7 and GWN7

Which approach to branding to people think would be better for WIN: Positioning themselves in a similar way to Prime7 or SCA Nine? Or doing completely independent branding from the metropolitan network they’re affiliated with?

Although I rarely ever get to watch WIN myself, I get the overall impression that their branding is all over the place with multiple logos, graphical styles and branding strategies all competing for each other. Promos telling us they have 30 minutes of local news, sport and weather for the Illawarra, South Coast and Southern Highlands (although aside from the weather, it’s very Wollongong/Nowra-centric from what I’ve seen) while simultaneously boasting about how they’re “Entertaining Australia” with stations in every state + the ACT.

Have they always been like that, is it just since they became affiliated with Ten or is it since aggregation in 1989??

WIN Ten would be their best option IMO.

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The brand is a mess and has been since they got rid of the dots - even though 9 brought them back! On one hand they bang on about ‘your news, local news’ bla bla bla with the most god awful copy ever written for a promo; and as you say they then harp on about being national and reaching a gazillion people.

The reason for the former is political - to ensure no one could accuse Bruce of being a ‘bad broadcaster’ when it comes to media reform laws. The latter is about reminding advertisers of the reach of the ‘network’. It’s all very old fashioned, Prime is doing nicely without any of that claptrap.

Ten’s brand is finely tuned and has, for the past 25 years at least, been carefully aligned with its target audience. WIN would do well to get on board! Though the name for me is a problem, “WIN Ten” is just jarring. I’d be tempted to create a new brand called something like Ten Star, where the Federation Star could represent their ‘every state’ coverage. Nine has faded NBN right down, it’s time for WIN to let it go.

Clearly I’m no designer, but something light touch like the old Ten Capital logo would be fine.

Ten%20Star

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What about ‘Southern Cross Ten’? :wink:

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You’ve rumbled me!

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:joy:

The federation star idea is a good one. It’s a shame Southern Cross couldn’t design a decent brand around that. The name was too long, the overly detailed logo looked shit on air and their execution was so half arsed (probably for good business reasons). Something short and workable like Ten Star would have been better for them.

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Bruce Gordon just needs to give it up; use Ten network branding, with some mention of location like the metro stations do.

SC 9 is fine. SC Ten was generally OK; the star logo was crap on-screen but at least it was almost never seen on screen.

Too bad it won’t change while Bruce has control.

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Once Bruce is gone they may do that. or WIN10 or something.

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You could be onto something

For starters

NRN started out on channel 10
DDQ started out on channel 10
GLV started out on channel 10

then again SDQ started out on channel 4
WIN itself started on channel 4

These were subsequently changed to allow stations marked Channel 0 to become Channel 10 or due to interefernce (in the case of NRN10 becoming NRN11)

Could be WIN10 and have a slogan We’re 4 You! - like they had many, many years ago


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At least by then that WIN blue mappy thing would disappear.

This would be my preferred option too! Ten Illawarra etc. All the time wasted on low-rent WIN branding could be spent on producing better content.

Bruce is far too proud to give up WIN, but he is 89 now so really, a couple more years and things will look different. I’d say though the local news will be cut to noodles when Brucey kicks it. Hopefully CBS will pick at the bones though, probably snap up NNSW or SNSW to bolster their reach - if not the whole ‘network’ if the ownership rules have changed by then.

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The ownership rules have changed already.

There’s no real point purchasing the regional affiliates though - the sale of NRN to WIN shows they are still worth too much, but the stations have been cut to the bone already, there’d be little efficiency gains to recoup the cost.

CBS should just negotiate a better affiliation deal and be willing to walk and see if WIN really will jump and try and go their own way.

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So they have! Don’t know how I missed this, but we don’t get too much news about Australian media in Portugal.

Like every business a TV station is valued on its profitability. The recoup in cost comes from selling advertising. As you say, the cost-cutting has already been done. What you are buying is the license and transmitters - as most of the other infrastructure is gone.

The business case for CBS would be the same as was Nine expanding to Darwin and Newcastle, and Seven in regional Qld: simply to increase its reach. The question is, does CBS have the staff and resources to “run” another license and service the local news requirements? At the moment the answer is likely no.

I doubt CBS would care enough to bother playing hard ball with WIN on a few percentage points on a P&L. The health of their biggest customer is still important to their profits.