First on Nine, First on Seven or just First with a Watermark?
What's the point of News watermarks when all they do is confuse the audience?
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under News, Top Stories
In the competitive game of television News, there’s a lot of emphasis on breaking the news, getting the exclusive and being first.
The word “Exclusive” has become so commonplace these days (due in no small part to 6:30 shows stamping it across almost every story) that is has lost all meaning.
Now Nine and Seven are in a tussle over the use and meaning of “First on Nine / Seven.” But what does it actually mean?
Does it mean an Exclusive story, does it mean airing the story before your competitor? Or does it mean something else altogether?
It’s being used so frequently as a watermark that mistakes are happening and its definition is hard to pinpoint.
TV Tonight asked both Nine and Seven to clarify the meaning of “First” and when it should be used.
Nine maintains it first started using the phrase when Darren Wick took over as Nine’s Head of News and Current Affairs.
A Nine spokesperson said, “Our philosophy with “First on Nine” is that it goes on material that is exclusive to Channel Nine at 6pm. We’ll also use it during the day in various updates where the material is being shown for the first time.”
A Seven spokesperson said, “It refers to an exclusive story, story development or vision which we aired first. It’s used when appropriate.”
So both are agreed it applies to Exclusive vision. But does Exclusive mean you are the only camera crew at a story, or does it mean your vision, your camera angle is unique?
On January 8th, TEN, Nine and Seven all ran stories on a police chase in the Melbourne suburb of Croydon, with Nine watermarking “First on Nine.” A Nine spokesperson told TV Tonight it ran the watermark at 4:40pm in a news Update -technically it’s 20 minutes before TEN’s 5pm News so the “First” would apply as first broadcaster, but not as Exclusive broadcaster.
On January 11th ABC News, Nine News and Seven News ran aerial footage of a fire at Kangaroo Ground, and Nine again used the watermark “First on Nine.” It was undoubtedly before ABC’s 7pm News, but was it really ahead of Seven? If it was it could have only been by minutes as part of a different rundown of stories.
This week Seven News went one step further by screening a story about a pregnant mother hit by a car in Glebe, using TEN footage and watermarking it “First on Seven” (see top photo). Neither exclusive nor first…
Some news vision is considered “pool vision” in which case all networks share the same footage. But trickery can still involve blurring the watermark of your rival, or branding your network logos right across the screen as if to suggest the footage is your own.
Meanwhile the audience is becoming more confused: “First” no longer means First to broadcast. “First” no longer means Exclusive content.
The audience still understands the word “Exclusive” to mean “we are the only network that has this story / interview.”
Everything else is spin.
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- Tagged with ABC News, Nine News, Seven News, TEN News
50 Responses
News24 has its uses, but whoever is responsible for the bottom of the screen (whatever it’s called) headlines must either be asleep, or goes home by 6.00pm. Nothing is ever updated, very little is expanded into a ‘real’ story (so you never find out the details), it’s just the same stuff over and over again all evening.
e.g. recently they gave basic results of the daytime tennis matches, but nothing about Tomic’s winning match played in the evening. Nuthin’ – zip. Even when I turned it off at 11.30pm, nothing had been updated.
As for the watermark issue – who cares who’s first. I find the commercial TV networks just pathetic in their ridiculous rivalries – it’s all about them. Never about their viewers.
They’re both childish like this. Probably always will be.
@Secret Squirrel
Damn it Faramir, you’ve beaten me to the draw again! 🙂
As I read the above article I kept wondering why it was relevant to any thinking person, as surely those viewers with any discrimination would not be watching commercial TV for their news.
It’s like the unceasing stream of stories about that breast feeding “brouhaha”, wtf cares?
How do these ‘nothing’ stories get so overblown?
What surprises me the most is the number of apparently intelligent and erudite commenters below who are obviously still watching 7 or 9 “news” despite being irritated so much by the watermarks. There are so many better alternatives (such as snorting a line of ants or hitting yourself with a hammer).
What about Breaking News!!!
With unnecessary captions obscuring the lower 1/3rd of the screen, and silly deceptive “First”/”Only”/”Exclusive” graphics it’s hard to see the picture – which is why I get my news from ABC24 now – who is usually “first” anyway. That TEN News First on Seven is a classic.
I completely ignore this ‘First’ and ‘Exclusive’ rubbish. As long as I get the news, I do not care who shows it a few seconds earlier than the other. What I am absolutely sick of is that every single news story has multiple puns throughout. It is unnecessary, embarrassing and unprofessional.
And what is with the use of slang on the news now such as ‘servo’ or ‘crim’. How about ‘service station’, or ‘criminal’. Why do we have to dumb down the news so much? Do not get me started on the quality of the articles on AdelaideNow. It is a total embarrassment, no spell checking, no grammar checks, no fact checking. Dreadful.
Well I remember from Times I’ve gone into the city and they have had Camera’s out for an event the only way that you can see whom the camera belongs to is the external microphone with there sign on it, apart from that there really is no way to tell as personalities do move around a fair bit.
Thank goodness for ABC News. No intrusive watermark polluting the screen there
It does not sit well with me when they use the word First during a story that is a tragedy. Its like they are bragging about bringing this tragedy to you first.
Hadn’t thought of that Jonno… but it’s an interesting observation.
Is anyone else rather disgusted to see the commercial networks using news stories to advertise their news programming too?
Their overblown “See it first…” and “Experience is the difference” ads that pop up during shows tend to use clips of reporters speaking about recent, high-profile, usually sensitive stories.
They can advertise their news by all means (I’ll still get mine from the ABC, SBS, and online services I trust, thanks), but stories about murders, crimes, deaths etc. need to be reported on appropriately, not used as advertising material.
People still watch the news on commercial networks? We prefer our news without the editorial content.
Nine run news promos in the evening with a few seconds from some stories of the day and transition each with First on Nine and end with see it first on Nine. None of the stories shown are first on Nine just general news.
Another tactic is to run a fluff piece that no other news service else is interested in with First on Nine across it.
I think the media watchdog needs to step in and put all the channels in place when it comes to things like these, they all seem to do what they want. In the advertising arena wouldn’t this be classified as ‘false advertising’ etc? we as viewers deserve to know the truth and not be tricked by the networks in regards to news fullstop.
To be honest I really don’t care if I see a news story a few minutes before a competitor.. it’s all just so silly
Completely agree, watermarks have lost all meaning.
Should only be used occasional for big stories, not every single day.
bashing the networks is so 2012, but your point is correct, Nine are bad for it, but the others are just as bad… onlu makes me laugh that in at least the example you have given in the Channel 7…that credibilty would be bought into question…when you can clearly see the TEN Super… i shot a massive fire this one time (over 15 years ago), and was the only mainstream media there, and our opposition ran “exclusive” on their vision shot by a guy 10metres behind me with his handycam… the funny thing was that i was in every shot of their story… so my point being its been happening forever…
I was very annoyed when Ch 9 showed some fire footage of Victoria the other day with that annoying watermark banner across the middle, along with the regular news frames/logos/banners around it. If it wasn’t for the 3 pixels to the far top right side corner of the screen, I wouldn’t have been able to see the flicker of fire. So I turned the TV off and continued to listen to the radio for fire updates.
Ch7 & 9 news are crap anyway so who cares if one of them gets a crappy news story to air 10 seconds quicker than the other. The only positive about their 6pm news is that it is about the only show that starts on time. There are so many news sources these days that their shows are largely irrelevant to the vast majority of the population
I find it so irritating when watching the news on either 9 or 7 seeing that big banner across the screen saying first on. It’s distracting and usually bullshit.
I dislike it when channel nine writes in big white letters accross the screen first on nine. It detracts from the story and is quite annoying. I ignore the story because it is going too far. Nowadays because of its overuse the more a news story saysnfirst on or exclusive I am less likely to believe it or care.
Those supers look nearly identical between seven and nine. They should just produce the one news service between themselves and just individually change the logo on the footage as it goes to air.
Their news banners are so intrusive. They take up most of the screen and you sometimes miss what’s important.
You’re possibly missing the point. It’s advertising, nothing more…
After all, it’s Important that you, the viewer, sees something First – wouldn’t want to be the Loser that sees it Second, would you? So you watch Nine News because you’ve always seen that it’s First on Nine.
Or maybe I’m simply too cynical to watch much TV news…
Most times when I see ‘first on…’ its just a turn off for me, especially when it’s plated across the center of the screen making it all but impossible to see the footage they are trying to promote.
I get the need to protect their footage/story but their should be a better way.