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90 minute News coming to TEN

UPDATED: It's been rumoured for months, will TEN extend its 5pm News bulletin to a 90 minute edition?

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ten-newsUPDATED: A later report in the Brisbane Times contradicts the Daily Telegraph story noted below:  “No, it is not true,” Ms Schnitzerling said.”We’ve been doing some rehearsals, but a couple of months ago we did the same thing with the early news,” she said. Asked specifically if there were plans to extend the 5pm news service, Ms Schnitzerling said: “Not at this stage…but we have been shooting pilots.”

It’s been rumoured for months, but today the Daily Telegraph confirms Network TEN will extend its 5pm News bulletin to a 90 minute edition, ending at 6:30pm.

The high-risk strategy is being plotted in Sydney by TEN’s national news supremo Cathy Schnitzerling. Secret pilot shows have been filmed in most state capitals, it claims.

It is understood the show will borrow from the Sky News format with a chatty presentation heavy on sport and with regular headline updates. Key reporters will offer provocative commentaries on news and current affairs.

By dropping a $25,000 for each episode of The Simpsons, TEN could save $6million a year.

Last week TEN publicity was at pains to point out it was winning the 5:30pm slot so upstaged by the battle of the game shows on Seven and Nine.

Changes in television news continue elsewhere as Nine readies a new one-hour mix of news and current affairs at 4:30pm and a new set for its 6pm Sydney News.

Even TEN’s “mystery 7pm show” for the second half of the year has a news-angle, though likely to be a lot more funky with an emphasis on entertainment.

Source: Daily Telegraph

52 Responses

  2. Just an observation: Im starting to miss 10 in high defintion. Sure 1 HD looks good, but it really should be a mixture of both 1 SD and 10 SD. And as for channel 12, or 1 SD, man is its bit rate low, I sometimes think im watching youtube it’s that bad.

  4. I have a few comments:
    1. A 90-minute bulletin is only useful if there is more serious news items from outside the home state and around the world, but not entertainment news.
    2. During public holidays (e.g. Good Friday and Christmas), the bulletin could be cut back to 60 minutes.
    3. With sports news pushed back even further, will it diminish the audience for the 7pm edition of Sports Tonight on ONE?
    4. What will happen on public holiday Mondays when there are AFL matches in Melbourne?

  5. I’m glad I come here for TV news. The other media reporting headlines of “Ten Axes The Simpsons” is ridiculous. If they choose to not play repeats at 6pm this is hardly “axing”. As long as they are playing new episodes, it’s not axed.

  6. @MichaelQ: That’s wishful thinking. Tell me how many times neighbours has been axed when ten comes up with a new 6pm show, and how many times the simpsons 6pm repeats has been axed? I’d say 0% of the time because there’s no way ten would just axe a 20 something year old show that has many fans, both here and overseas (im not a fan, but I understand that one can be a fan of a tv show, after watching lost) in favour of an extra 30 mins of news. I don’t know if people in england would be as keen to watch the last 30 minutes of ten news instead of neighbours.

    @John: totally agree, simpsons@6pm provides alternate viewing. When i was younger, id watch that instead of boring news, now i do like watching 7 news at 6, but only until about a quater past the hour, not interested in the sports, finance or weather report, there are other ways of obtaining that.

  7. I have to say people are getting unreasonably protective of Simpsons repeats. I love The Simpsons, but if this does go ahead, the fact of the matter is, News will do better that incessant repeats of The Simpsons, and people might be more inclined to watch The Simpsons on Friday and Wednesday (still 3 eps a week!) because they haven’t seen it five other times anyway. I can’t believe people are complaining about removing repeats!

    Ten are (finally) displaying what seems like an effort to actually compete with Nine and Seven which is more than can be said for the 17+ years they have accepted coming third – oftentimes TEN’s 7pm-10:30 shows do well but their share has been dragged down by their 6pm-7:00 programming. Even if this doesn’t affect Seven or Nine that much the 700k-900k that their news garners is still better than the 500k-600k that The Simpsons gets and has the potential to improve ratings for Neighbours.

    Plus if it goes ahead and fails, I’m sure the extra 6 million dollars they could be saving would count for something for TEN’s broke owners. IMO this plan if put in action would be a positive step.

  8. wow thats cool as….
    news, news or news at 6pm!!!!!

    for gods sake ch10 u cant use sport as an excuse coz u already have channel one for that, and ten news already repeats the same news reports within an the hour long program
    the simpsons is so successful becuase ppl who don’t watch the news enjoy having options!
    if u must axe the simpsons from 6pm weeknights, replace it with something else like futurama or friends (but then friends would be heavily edited at 6)

    yeah channel 10 is officaly screwed

  10. TEN need to be congratulated this year for trying their best. They are the one (good) network who don’t axe shows every day. Everyday when I come onto this website, the word ‘Axed’ is followed by a channel seven or Nine program.

    Channel Ten also start the majority of their shows on time. Apart from the live ones.

    Channel ten are also trying heaps of new things, out of the norm: Bold and Beautiful at 6pm, eradicating kids tv from the afternoon, and now this.

    Their promos for shows are also fantastic.

    This idea may actually be quite successful. The Melbourne presenters are great. Seriously.

  11. like bindi said many news sites are going with the headline the simpsons has been axed, at the moment the 90min bulliten is just speculation and even if it turned out to be true episodes would still be shown 5 days week(new eps Wednesday, one hour repeats Friday, and one half ep each on sat&sun

  12. people are so over reacting to this, how does going from 10 episodes a week to 5 constitute an axing of the simpsons? if a show is still on air it is not axed. people didn’t make this big a deal back last year when the 6pm timeslot got shuffled around with will and grace, friends and taken out. and it isn’t even for sure yet, doesn’t sound like it has been confirmed by 10 at all so people could be having a big cry over nothing.

  13. I’m sorry Ten, but you’ve just wrecked a perfectly good programme! I mean, seriously – sacrificing ‘The Simpsons’, which is watched by a considerable segment of your audience, for 30 minutes of cross promotions, ‘Headline Recaps’, fluff and ads?

  15. They should keep it at 1 hour and put neighbors on at 5pm the news from 5:30 to 6:30pm and a current affairs show on at 6:30pm but unlike trash tonight and a crappy affair the ten one actually tells the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth without relying on sensation it would probably do pretty well

  18. Why do people automatically think a 90 mins News means the end of The Simpsons repeats?

    I would think Neighbours is much more likely to be given the chop and move Simpsons / Whatever repeats to 6:30 as a comedy break before the new 7pm show. (or put The Daily Show @ 6:30).

    Neighbours between a 90 mins News and 7pm News / Discussion / Sports show doesn’t make a lot of sense.

  19. Beleive it or not I’d probably watch this – I don’t generally get home till 5.45 so the first news I see is Nine (Seven is just ass) but if I was given the choice between Hitchener and Walden – I’d choose Walden, he always has the potential for unsolicited comment

  20. Heavy on sport and heavy on fluff huh.

    Might have to start recording these to see Mal Walden in Melbourne crack the sads at some non news story and make a funny comment from time to time as he is known to do.

    Channel 10 why not put your News as is to 5:30pm to 6:30pm, move Bold And The Beautiful to 5:00pm and put something on for the younger audience at 4:00-5:00pm, remember the days of Wonder World, Totally Wild and the like, even come up with a Teen style Magazine Show (even with some real issues like binge drinking and such) , add to that things on to watch on Twitter, Facebook or whatever (Console Gaming etc like a Teen version of Attack Of The Show in parts) but not an hour and half of News.

  21. I will miss the weeknightly Simpsons repeats, but if the new Simpsons on Wednesday’s and the Simpsons hour on Friday’s remain I’ll be satisfied.

    The weeknight Simpsons were going all the way back to season 5 anyway, which I am kinda sick of seeing.

    Any idea of when the extended 90 minute news edition starts?

  22. With the financial problems Can West (who were incredibly stupid not to sell
    Ten off 2 or 3 years ago) are having, this is actually a sensible and long overdue move by Ten, but they’d be better off at 6 pm, just repeating the first 30 minutes of the 5 pm bulletin, for people who get home after 5.30.

    If people wonder why The Simpsons (that should’ve probably ended in 2000, as it’s got progessively worse since then and many of its once keenest fans no longer even watch it) keeps getting made by News Corp and why it’s voice actors keep doing it, this article answers why – because everyone concerned now does it for the money, as it’s a hugely lucrative show, from overseas syndication profits.

  23. @Tim: You’re exactly right!
    A lot of full time employees watch the 6pm news so they’re not going to turn on channel ten now, which will most likely just have the sports report from 6-630pm.
    Plus, they’ll lose i’d say all existing 6pm viewers, thus having to make up a new audience, which I don’t think will be that easy, and it certainly won’t pull in as many viewers as simpsons repeats did.

    One reason why im disappointed is i’d started collecting episodes from 6pm. What I mean is, i’d tape it on a dvd-ram disc, then copy it to the computer, convert it to a readable format, edit out the ads, then convert it to mp4 so I could view it on an ipod. I have about 90 or so eps, but i’d like to keep that growing.

  24. Sounds like a great opportunity for TEN to save some money by padding out their news with inane, Sunrise style anchor banter and some more sport. Hell, their already producing more sport packages for the ONE HD edition of Sports Tonight so they may as well dump it into the main bulletin as well. The wisdom of Cathy knows no bounds. First she dumps Ron and now this. I’m betting this will be short lived and Homer, Bart and co will be back after some well earned long service leave.

  25. Will still switch over to Nine at 6 for their news. Can imagin what crap will be being spoken by then to fill up the Ten Bulletin. If this is an effort to take Nine and Seven’s news ratings, good luck CH10. 90 Min’s of news, give it 2 months!

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