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TEN shareholder “puzzled” by News strategy

Bruce Gordon is the first TEN shareholder to go on the record questioning the revamped 6 - 7 news hour.

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“All the main stations do news while the ABC have a 24-hour news channel,” says Bruce Gordon. “TEN’s 5 o’clock is the equal of Seven and Nine . . . But all of a sudden they are doing 2 1/2 hours of news each day. It’s got me puzzled.”

With that, TEN shareholder and WIN boss Bruce Gordon is the first of the network’s owners to go on the record questioning the revamped 6 – 7 news hour.

82 year old Gordon is a long-term shareholder of TEN’s, owning 13% of the network.

“I should not be overly critical because we are still TEN’s largest shareholder, but it has got me puzzled,” he tells The Australian. “If anyone was against the idea of doing more news it’s me. I think we are over-catered for when it comes to news.”

It can’t be helpful for the network to have the Bermuda-based mogul speaking out on its new strategy, although he is complimentary about ELEVEN (it will “do very well” he notes). But WIN is also a recent Board member, joining Jamie Packer, Lachlan Murdoch and Gina Rineheart. There will be method in his madness.

Last week media reported Packer and Murdoch also held concerns about the amount of foreign content in 6PM with George Negus, but a TEN spokesperson denied this.

“This is not a two-week plan or three-month one – you can’t do what we’ve done and expect instant results – this is a long haul,” a spokeswoman tol the Daily Telegraph.

Gordon’s role in the media is likely to remain prominent this year, especially if WIN makes a bid for Nine shares if an expected float arrives. That could see him choose allegiances between Nine and TEN.

He currently owns Nine in Perth and Adelaide as well as WIN’s regional stations.

6PM with George Negus averaged 451,000 viewers last week, down from 484,000 in its debut week.

Source: The Australian, Daily Telegraph

Amended.

36 Responses

  1. How about you all get over it… What are you paying to watch this .? Hmmm Zero.. If you don’t like it don’t watch it… pretty simple really….

    And when you comment please include your job and company name so the public can critic you/your company as you all seem that you are All expert programmers….

  2. Get over it Bruce and look at WIN Television before you worry about Tens news evolution. WIN is in need of repair and fast. The entire presentation is sloppy (2 completely different official logos used), and MediaHub falling apart.

  4. Of course it’s worth remembering that the 75% population reach laws need to be scraped first before Bruce becomes the king of Nine – unless he offloads at least half of WIN Regional first.

  5. I just watch Negus and the 6.30 news. The 7 & 9 news content is too skewed to celebrity for me and I don’t watch the 5 pm news as I’m either at work or watching hot seat.

  6. @GuanoLad

    I would have done something like this:

    5:00 Ten News
    6:00 George Negus
    6:30 7PM Project
    7:00 Game show or something?

    (The middle two could be swapped). That way you have your serious news (5pm), Current Events, World Affairs (6pm) and the lighter look at news (6:30).

  7. I don’t watch it, though I may start to if I begin to get frustrated with 7News’s constant editorialising. However, I agree that it’s a puzzling move to not only increase TEN’s News output, but to jam it all together in one continuous lump. We have a couple of slow news days per month, how can they find enough to keep the 2 hours of content interesting every day?

    I think this experiment will ultimately fail and will fold before the end of the year. I hope not at the expense of the 7PM Project, though.

  9. I think negus can work but it would of suited the traditional 6:30 timeslot for current affairs shows, local news is just stupid maybe they could of tried creating a “the daily show” type show with a bit of humor

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