Thank you. Its a very handy service to have, great job!
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That’s awesome. I’ve just bookmarked it 
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With all this affiliation confusion going on, I feel like it would be so much simpler if WIN just became a separate channel in regional Australia.
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What does that mean? It needs programming and the only way it can reliably do that is to align with one of the metropolitan networks.
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Thanks. Please direct questions to the dedicated thread so we’re not going too far off topic.
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so the alternate is to have 1 news local markets, the journos will become lazy. Competition breeds a better quality news service, places like Orange Wollongong and Wagga will only have 1 news and i would be concerned by this if i was working for that newsroom, nothing stopping WIN and Prime slowly reducing the budgets for them
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There just ain’t the money to properly pay for competing news services unlike the US when you’re paying almost 50% in affiliation fees.
The ironic thing is the US system encourages local news and content, as when a station airs local news they get to keep 100% of the ad revenue booked in that broadcast.
When they air network programming they have to share the revenue with the network
Knowing that 6-7 Is the most watched and most profitable hour on aussie TV, If Australia had the US system - stations would be highly incentivized to air local News between 6 and 7 - as they wouldn’t have to pay 50% of revenue to the parent network
Ive always maintained this is the best and fairest way to encourage local content on Australian tv
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Bruce knows how it works too.
I Don’t know why the CEOs of SCA, Prime and WIN have not looked to the thriving US model and taken this idea to the table when they negotiate with the networks. If SCA, Prime and WIN had a unified approach on this matter - the networks would not have much choice
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He’s giving Nine 50% of revenue airing in WIN News, his own programming.
When WIN is airing ACA or Lego masters that make sense - as they’re effectively paying for the content with 50% of revenue.
But when he airs WIN He’s effectively paying Nine for his own programming
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That would be illegal; cartels - competitors getting together to set prices (or otherwise collude) - are prohibited.
Regulation would be needed to force that reasonable approach, making any non-network time excluded from the revenue sharing agreement.
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News is not a requirement anywhere in Australia. It was used as cheap filler to meet Aussie quota needs by SCA before 2016, and Prime and WIN have news as an easier production than a drama or other type of content.
The metro’s aren’t even required to have a news service.
If they went to the US model, they wouldn’t be running News.
… local news is not “cheap” … per hour, it is the single most expensive item of programming on any regional television station …
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And also the most important element of any regional television station.
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Aren’t regional stations required to have local content? And news content earns 4 times as many points (and probably 25 times as many ratings points) as other types of content
That in effect makes it a requirement almost
And for some stations when you look at the lift local news gives a whole station (7 QLD, NBN Newcastle, 7 Perth, 7 Tasmania) from a financial point of view local news is a requirement
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What do you mean?
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Because they’re basically powerless thanks to the imbalance in their relationship with the metros - not to mention it would probably be considered cartel behaviour (and the government aren’t interested in regulation of much of the commercial aspects of the industry
The rules are vague enough that it appears that it doesn’t necessarily have to be news, but rather “material of local significance”. The rules give some favouritism to news - 2pt/min for “local area” and 1pt/min for “licence area” and CSA content
Only because it’s become the default response to fill the quota and there is a strong element of risk-aversity in the sector.
If you’re market leading, news makes sense (and is probably a decent contributor to ratings), but if you’re last (and possibly even second), doing something different for local content quotas is an option (Southern Cross tried it with State Focus a number of years back)
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I’m actually of the firm belief it’s because the heads of SCA, Prime and WIN Don’t know how the US system works. And how more local news actually means more revenue for stations
Nine and Seven both know having strong local news on their affiliate stations comes back to them in larger revenue. Seven has explicitly stated this public ally when talking about Prime’s news. And Nine has acknowledged this in putting resources and money into SCA’s news
Strong local news on affiliates lifts the entire stations revenue through primetime halo effect. Which both the affiliate and network benefit from. It’s in both parties interest.
However in the case of Win and Prime the affiliate bears the cost of producing the news. If that could be offset by being allowed to keep 100% of the revenue booked in the local news, the affiliate has a financial incentive to produce local news and market and promote it well, and the network still benefits from the halo effect of 7pm to midnight