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Local Prime News to shift to Canberra base

Prime TV is believed to be shutting down its local News bulletins in Tamworth, Orange, Albury / Wodonga and Wagga.

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Regional broadcaster Prime TV is believed to be shutting down its local Prime News bulletins in Tamworth, Orange, Albury / Wodonga and Wagga.

Insiders say they will now be read out of its headquarters in Canberra from July 1st.

The Daily Advertiser reports journalists will remain covering major regional events but speculates if Wagga newsreader Doug Hogan, who has been the face of the live bulletin for 2 decades, may have to move to Canberra. One full-time position is tipped to be lost from each station.

It is also unclear how the changes will impact on GWN News in Bunbury, which also comes under Prime management.

Prime declined to comment to enquiries from TV Tonight about the move.

Local staff have been informed of the changes.

Source: Advertiser, ABC

29 Responses

  2. I think Kenny’s comments say it all.

    Unless you’re in a coastal capital you’re provided a bugger all service by way of news and weather. I don’t mind it being centralised but why Sydney’s traffic report or Gold Coast traffic is of interest to me 99% of the time in Newcastle is hard to establish and I’m a reasonable open minded person.

    Basically regional tv is bereft of innovation and stick to a slow drip feed of existence living of major network decisions and placing nothin back to the community in return.

  3. Amazing that TV operators still trot out the weather guy and pretend he’s in the same studio or worse talking live to that person when they recorded their parts hours apart and miles apart. SBS seem the worse if you ever watch The World Game and the fake live interviews with players etc. Foz goes into newsreader mode in place of frustrated thunderbird mode.

  4. @Kenny, pretty sure WIN’s WA bulletin has come out of Perth for the last couple of years, was after WIN aquired Nine Perth. think Greg Pearce has even bobbed up on WIN News rather than on Nine before.

  5. @Clint – he also does weather for Wollongong/South Coast NSW as a window before 7 News’ weather. Third biggest city in the state but no local Prime News, just an autocue reader for 20-secs from Canberra or somewhere.
    @Stan – WIN Wollongong’s one studio is stretched to the limit. They dropped Griffith news (now included with Wagga) and moved W’gong local news from 6pm to 6:30 to give a bit more time. They also do regional WA from Wollongong but the 2-3 hrs time zone helps there. I believe they now do precords for Orange/Central West, Wagga/Griffith, with Wollongong live, followed by WA regional. Ballarat on the other hand does Ballarat plus Bendigo, Shepparton, Albury & Traralgon (I think – or used to when Dennis Walter did it all).

  6. Gibbo is based out of Canberra. He does a pre record weather, and as you noted they pretend he’s in the studio with the news presenter.

    This explains a lot, because the directive going around Prime was, as the weather boxes/computers die in each location, Gibbo would do a pre record for that news bulletin. So far, he’s doing Albury and Orange I believe.

  7. So the guy Daniel who does the weather…where is he based? From Albury he’s sometimes in 4:3, sometimes in 16:9. He talks to the newsreader as if they are next to each other which is certainly not true.

  8. This might explain why Prime News Albury is still in 4:3 and the studio looks ancient. ( And the dress sense of the main news presenter is horrendous).

  9. Hopefully the move the a large metro city (Canberra) will mean an increase in production values and a slicker bulletin and overhaul of the look.
    Prime News looks so dated.

  10. I lived up the country a few years ago,and remember the Prime and Win Local news programs.To the country folk i would have thought this was important for the local news to stay local.To be based up in Canberra,i would have thought as a poor decision.If your going to do that get rid of it all together.Will Win News now follow suit,my guess would be no not unless down the track Dennis Walter calls it quits or gets a call from Channel 9 to do some weekend work,or something related to the news

  11. this does not effect Albury and Tamworth…according to my source, and it is very good…the wagga reader Hogan is his name, will move to Canberra to read Wagga and a Orange Bulletin, they are thinking but its not confirmed that Prime will restart their Canberra News Bulletin, meaning they will do what WIN Tv has successfully done for over a decade, and that is to produce three Bulletins out on one studio, two pre record and one live…the funny thing is that Prime for years and years has bagged WIN TV for reading their news from some distant place, and therfore not really local news…hehehe now they have to cook and eat that humble pie…its all about the $$$$ in TV now , sad but its the way it is. This is fact.

  12. Surely, the people who lost their jobs, are angry, but scorned viewers will burn you, Prime. No amount of possum talk will ease the anger in Tamworth, Albury/Wodonga, Wagga Wagga and Orange when you cut the heartland news, like Southern Cross, did in Cairns/Townsville and Canberra in 2001…

  13. @Stan, WIN Qld aren’t local based news readers. The news for the state comes out of Rockhampton with local journos filing stories. Until recently Townsville news was read live, Cairns prerecorded. Now the bulletin goes to air 30 minutes later I’m not sure who’s live.

  16. It’sRoss,

    You’re right about the Wagga bulletin! I forgot about that. Yet, I meant all WIN News bulletins in a more general sense. Buy that I mean WIN Corp still produce bulletins from their Wollongong, Canberra, Ballarat, Rockhampton, Toowoomba, Mount Gambier, Hobart, Adelaide & Perth studios. Compared to most of the Southern Cross network & now Prime/GWN, at least WIN have kept a lot of their studios when they could’ve recorded everything from ‘Gong HQ. 🙂

  19. Just becaus eit’s loal doesn’t make it good. And how much is really news as in reported soon after it happens. There are stories played mid week or later relating to the weekend. One thing I dislike about SC10 / Prime news updates is the presenters inability to pronounce the town names correctly but still pretend it’s a local service as well as having my Newcastle / Hunter local news filled with Canberra and Gold Coast events.

  21. I’d like to know how they’re going to do this? All pre records? They only have 2 studios, one for Saturday club and one for news updates.

    Word is production, iprime, IT and Eng are playing musical chairs in the building.

  22. Looks like Prime/GWN are just following Southern Cross’ lead with the move to Canberra, as all of their news updates (except Tasmania) come from their Canberra play-out centre.

    The WIN Network really deserve a lot of credit for their continuing commitment to local news.

    If any Prime viewers would rather watch Today Tonight than what’s happening in their community, then it says more about them personally than Prime’s news!

  24. Their news service is woeful, I’d prefer they got rid of it altogether so regional viewers can get Today Tonight instead (we always miss out on it and have to settle for ACA at 7pm).

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