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Nine: “we owned” Jessica Watson coverage

In a memo leaked to TV Tonight, Nine's News boss claims victory in the Jessica Watson coverage, boasting it "owned a massive news event we didn't, officially, own."

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Coverage of the Jessica Watson Homecoming was “owned” by Channel Nine, according to its News boss, even at the expense of the rights-holder TEN / ONE.

All three commercial networks were covering the event, but only TEN / ONE had blanket exclusivity access on Watson, whose journey it had sponsored from the beginning.

That got TEN / ONE scoop pictures and interviews, which were rebroadcast by other networks, complete with the ONE branding across the screens. In the old days, such tolerance of a rival network would arguably never have been allowed.

A buoyant Mark Calvert, Nine’s Director of News and Current Affairs told staff on Sunday that they had delivered, in an internal memo leaked to TV Tonight.

“Well done on a superb performance on the homecoming of Jessica Watson,” he wrote.

“The output right across Saturday was by far the best of any of the networks. We saw that – and the viewers agreed.

“In the final quarter-hour of the live homecoming show, our audience averaged around 750,000 – a massive switch-on for a Saturday afternoon – and way ahead of anything Seven or Ten could manage.

“The live coverage, EP’d by Rob Hurst, led on-air by Karl and Lisa, and with support from across News, Today Show and ACA, was a master-class in how to run a TV marathon. The team sustained interest, humour and energy across four and a half huge hours.

“The dedication and ingenuity of everybody who worked behind the scenes, on location, on land, on water and in the air – and the warmth and sheer stamina of our hosts and reporters – made the late-scrambling Seven look average. Rights-holders Ten/OneHD didn’t know what to do with what they had. (Rob did!) And our so-called ‘national broadcaster’ wasn’t even in the game, the ABC choosing instead to show a repeat of Australian Story – while Nine was bringing the ultimate Australian story to the nation, live, as it happened.

“All in all, we absolutely owned a massive news event we didn’t, officially, own!”

Ratings numbers were all over the shop after Watson’s arrival was delayed and TEN and Seven switched to digital channels.

According to OzTAM in Overnight figures Seven pulled 452,000 for its news special, Nine pulled 429,000 and TEN had 229,000. It had a further 144,000 on ONE’s extended broadcast. But results for children’s TV shows which didn’t air were actually part of the Watson broadcast.

Nine claims that from 11-3:30pm the numbers were as follows:

Nine: 482,000
TEN: 326,000
Seven: 322,000
ONE: 184,000
7TWO: 61,000

Of course, it isn’t a fair breakdown given TEN switched to AFL at 2:08pm and Seven to V8 Supercars at 2:30pm with Watson coverage continuing on digital channels, while Nine did stay the course. In any case the combined TEN / ONE total is 510,000, undermining Nine’s own claims.

One source suggested to TV Tonight that Watson had even been asked to “kill time” off the NSW coast in order for her arrival to dovetail into the 2pm AFL match.

60 Minutes had also stitched up a second Watson interview as part of its first deal with Charles Woolley prior to her departure.

62 Responses

  1. Gee, this is the same crap networks here in the states obsess about. Like ” We brought you poor Charlie jumping off the building top 3 minutes earlier than any other station.” Who cares about that? Poor Charlie is still dead and will be for quite some time regardless of who reported it first.

  2. When all you “baggers” get out from your keyboard, go down to Darling Harbour and look at her boat, which I would be scared going out of the heads in, let alone 7 months at sea, you might have some repect.! What did you “heroes” do when you were 16.? Delivery your local newspaper with your mummy.?

  4. Interesting story David. Would be interested to hear of Ten/ONE’s response to what happened. The must be kicking themselves that they had to go to the footy before the event ended then they had insult added to injury of channel 9 using their footage on their main channel why they could only show it on ONE with many people no doubt unable to view it.

    I’m sure that ONE would not have been asking her to take her time sailing in for the reason above.

    On a related note, there have been cries from some that her arrival time was delayed from days earlier in order to arrive on the Saturday – and I’m sure that this is absolutely true. They had to organise a welcome event and I had been tracking on her progress up the coast the week prior and no doubt she did slow down to time it for Saturday morning. I think it was the right thing to do as she wasn’t in a race and it made for a great TV event that will go the way of helping her marketability and produce income to pay for the cost of the trip and for her future.

    Nothing wrong with that at all.

  5. Sorry David but you misunderstood the meaning behind my comment. I was referring to the fact that three national networks spent hours and countless resources covering a sixteen year old sailing a yacht into Sydney Harbour. If anything else newsworthy had occurred over the weekend, surely they wouldn’t have done so.

    Having run a blog myself for a couple of years, rest assured I know (and appreciate) just how much time and effort you put into TV Tonight. It’s a quality blog/website, and even on a slow news day in the entertainment biz (of which there would be few), doubtless requires a great deal of effort on your part. I for one would not wish to downplay that.

    Keep up the great work.

  6. It’s called a rallying of the troops guys which was a private company email. It was leaked to TVT and David decided to publish it.

    Media companies I have worked for have sent a lot more “mutual masturbatory congratulatory messages” than this from Nine. It pales into insignificance.

    I watched Nine and ONE on Saturday and thought Karl and Lisa did a stellar job. Same with Kath and Bill. I caught a few minutes of Mark and Sam on Seven and it looked like a last-second job. But that’s for Peter Meakin to defend.

    I would like to see some of you sit for 5 hours crapping on during live TV with things constantly changing and see how well you do.

  11. David who cares what some little twerp on the comments board says – this is worthy of reporting as it shows the classic arrogance of Nine. Thank you for this story.

    My only comment on it is that I wonder how much Nine “owned” the news even when your competitor is plastered all over the screen?? Maybe do it yourself next time and you can take bragging rights, rather than using someone elses hard work.

  12. Great achievement for the young lady but it didn’t deserve the OTT attention it got. What a pity they couldn’t put the same amount of resources and effort into covering news that really effected lives. Where was Nine on that Saturday afternoon when half of Victoria was on fire?

  14. Haven’t all the Ten fanboi’s got their knickers in a knot lol

    It’s embarrassing for Ten that they’re coverage was pretty poor considering the exclusives they had. Bill Woods always makes me feel ill.

  15. Keep up the good work David!

    If I had had any option but to watch nine’s coverage, I wouldn’t have. Karl made me want to do myself in! Unfortunately, I was at a friends house who hasn’t got digital yet. Go ONE!

  16. The only thing nine did differently is continue coverage on their non-digital channel while the others moved to digital only channels. In effect, Nine ended up broadcasting OneHD to those that didnt have digital TV

  19. By the way, that last comment was directed at general media coverage, not this article or TV Tonight. They’re beating a dead horse with this so called “news” and as seen by this memo its all just a pissing contest by the networks. Thank God real journalism is still on the ABC

  20. Freakin Channel Nine. What are they on? Who does that, its a low move even for them.

    As for this story itself, all this ‘hero’, ‘real Australian story’ BS is OTT. A girl sat in a boat and is now a multi-millionare. Whoop de doo. How about going back to real news now instead of bottom of the barrel human interest tabloid crap?

  21. The morons at Nine gave more publicity to ONE and TEN than money could buy, with the ONE and TEN logos all over Nine, saying “we (Nine) can’t do this ourselves so we are pinching this from ONE and TEN”.
    Kerry Packer would never have allowed it. Neither would the boy Gyngel’s father.

  22. i agree with grinspoon and lost forever. i wouldn’t call this heroic. when someone goes out their way to risk their own life to save another, that is heroic.

    1. Not that slow Rhys. As of 1pm the following have been posted here today:

      Charlie Sheen signs for 2 more years of 2.5 Men
      Returning: True Blood
      Hey Hey: May 19
      CBS picks up Hawaii Five-0 remake
      Nine: “we owned” Jessica Watson coverage
      Sticking the knife in
      Upfronts: FOX
      Hey Dad! investigation continues
      CSI franchise (back) to GO!
      ASTRA ambassadors
      Airdate: 2010 French Open

      In running a television blog I actually seek to supply a mix of news, programming, reviews etc. that will have varying degrees of importance. This story gives some light as to what goes on behind the scenes, and is original content. But I do like your idea of taking time out on a slow news day and not posting anything at all.

  25. I agree with Grinspoon. I don’t have anything against the girl and good on her for making the trip but I also don’t understand how she’s considered a hero? To me a hero is someone who saves lives! Same goes for sport stars.

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