Axed: Nightline
Nightline has been axed by the Nine Network yet again and presenter Kellie Connolly has been offered a redundancy.
- Published by David Knox
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Nightline has been axed by the Nine Network yet again.
The late night news service, along with presenter Kellie Connolly, will not return because the bulletin wasn’t cost effective.
Connolly has been offered a redundancy package.
“I’ve got more money for news and current affairs, but it’s a matter of how to spend it,” Nine News chief Mark Calvert has told The Australian.
“We’re re-opening the London bureau, which is expensive. I’ve put more people on A Current Affair and Today. We’ll be spending more on this federal election than we’ve ever spent before.
“Doing all that means we have to look at what else we are doing and say: is it paying its way? And the reality is, a program that’s on at the earliest at 11.30pm is only being seen by a handful of people because most people are in bed.
“The main battle for us, with Seven, is at breakfast, and between 6pm and 7pm, not in the middle of the night.”
Nightline was dumped in July 2008 after a 15 year run. In May 2009 the network resumed a Late News service before rebranding it to Nightline in November.
But the bulletin has struggled of late with no clear starting time, and frequently the victim of last minute network amendments. It has also not aired in WIN-managed Adelaide and Perth affiliates.
Nine will now rely upon news breaks throughout the evening, hosted by rostered reporters.
SKY News is believed to be interested in Connolly’s services.
Source: The Australian
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- Tagged with A Current Affair, Nightline, Nine News, Sky News, Today
43 Responses
11:30pm was really too late for a news builtein. I usual watch Ten News before going to bed, as that airs at 10:30pm.
Niteline gets axed again … So much for first on Nine 🙂
@chk chk and anyone else interested, I just started a Facebook group
called “Bring Kellie Connolly Back on TV”
Maybe it will help 🙂
With the bulletin not airing in the west, south or Tas at all or regional Vic, NSW & QLD … that is ALot of potential viewers and advertisers missing out!! Hence why it isn’t cost effective…
I think the bulletin is a very good idea – more over, a live bulletin at a regular time of 10.30 would see a vast improvment in audience & advertiser interest… and compete with Ten.
Undoubtedly there will be a moment in the very near future where a major story will break … and Nine will be caught with their pants down and not have enough staff on hand to break into programming and you will not “always see it first on Nine” (according to Nine Brisbane…)
I cannot believe they are letting Kellie go.
Us here in Perth has had to suffer the past two years with our 6pm news repeated at 12am! *groan* And I bet they will continue. Nightline was a great news program and us people in Perth would have loved to seen it again.
Anyway back to the relevant topic:
Somehow I think 9 will return Nightline again or some other Late News program in the future. It seems this time of year they always axe the show then return it later on. 9 sometimes has drastic mood swings.
Nine making another mistake,Ive always enjoying watching her,she is a talented newsreader.Wish her luck for her future hope she gets another job as a newsreader
nightlong was terrible, did people see a different show to me? Kellie was good but her blown out intros to stories were always so opinionated, the show had re-runs of ACA rubbish stories, and the cross promotion of the Today show segments. The whole show was expensive filler!
Oh FFS!
Can sombeody please create a facebook plea to bring Kellie back on air??
I’m not so surprised with the axing of Nightline, after all it has been done before and i’ve become accustomed to the chopping and changing of the schedule. But i am very surprised at the news of Kellie being offered a redundancy package!
They should be bending over backwards to retain her services in one of the other broadcasts that they have. She is easily the best female presenter in a national role, and a real asset to Any network that would employ her.
Would have thought that they gave her one of her old spots back – either the morning or 4:30 news, even weekend today. Perhaps she was offered such roles, but considered them a demotion.
Nightline didn’t air on any WIN station at all, not just in Adelaide and Perth.
Have to agree that Nightline was NIne’s best News of the day, far superior than 6pm which is too busy promoting itself as meaningless exclusives that are not necessarily big news.
Problem is, with no accurate EPG on Nine, it could start anything from 10 minutes early to 15 minutes late depending what night it was on – making it difficult to catch if you were not already watching channel Nine – which at that time of the night – I never was!
Sometimes we’d catch it, sometimes we wouldn’t. The ratings just reflect that.
It is understandable for Nightline to get axed. Whilst it was a good show, probably the best news program on the network, it was never at a fixed time and was sometimes pushed out of prime time altogether. I believe it could have worked better in a 10:30-11:00 permanent time slot, leaving an hour after it for another show to finish before midnight, but oh well…
“I’ve put more people on A Current Affair .”..i just read this again..what!!!!!! this is the show that should be dumped…a total load of C…P
kellie is brilliant and should be reading the six o’clock news in sydney not dumped…good grief
It’s funny how Channel Ten can afford to have a late night news programme, when they run things on the cheap, yet Nine can’t afford it?
Whether it’s Pay TV or FTA Kellie Connolly needs to be on television.
It seems that way. I noticed, no updates since Rudd’s disappearance. I mean if they want shows like Hot Seat which can land some 1m richer, why not axe that and pay for nightline. The night shift workers won’t have news and I was enjoying the ABC news nightline feeds. Also the newspaper headlines were interesting. I think it was never destined for a full rein-statement.
Mistake! I am a big fan of Kellie, and the way Nightline gives longer airtime to major stories – i.e. airing interviews from earlier in the day. Kellie was great in her stint hosting Today and as a general newsreader. She will be a loss to Nine, and this is not good news for their news brand.
Kellie is a great loss to Nine, why don’t they just give her the afternoon news.
This is where TEN clearly wins out, most nights starting between 10:30 and 11pm. Maybe with the ABC having a 24/7 news channel soon they decided to cut their losses?
Grrr … I like Kellie. Wish her good luck in whatever she does in the future.
I thought i’d check Twitter on my phone for the first time in ages and when I saw the headline for this story I thought my twitter app must have been planing up showing really old posts…but no it’s just another pathetic decision by a pathetic network… Seriously sort your beep out 9 (‘beep’ based on the Twitter account of the same name!)
Nine has lost a great talent letting go of Kellie. I always felt that Kellie got ripped off not getting the Today gig she was a fantastic stand in before Lisa. Kellie would be a great fit with Sky News.
(all caps) what the f*** are they doing? This is Nine’s _only_ decent News/Current Affairs show.
This channel nows has _zero_ credibility for day-to-day News worthiness IMO. The 6PM News is a toxic mish mash of rubbish, puff pieces, and half-assed coverage of important issues. They have a school girl doing the weather in Melbourne, and more or less only cover AFL. The 6:30 show – enough said. The “news” updates in the evening are 30 seconds of topical crap, belonging in the Confidential sections of Herald Sun.
Phhft.