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Regional broadcaster to drop TEN Evening News

Southern Cross Media in Shepparton, Victoria, will soon drop the 6:30 TEN Evening News in favour of a new local show.

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Southern Cross Media in Shepparton, Victoria, will soon drop the 6:30 TEN Evening News in favour of a new local show, Weeknights.

The regional affiliate will drop the news hosted by Mal Walden in Melbourne to launch a new local programme for local viewers. While it is a positive for regional viewers, it is a blow for TEN as it tries to lift the fortunes of the bulletin which is struggling to attract viewers.

Weeknights, to be anchored by Joel Crean (pictured), will include news, sport and weather with lifestyle segments for viewers in the Goulburn Valley: Shepparton, Deniliquin, Cobram, Euroa, Benalla, Seymour and Yea.

The show will be filmed from locations throughout the Goulburn Valley with journalists including Peter Cardamone, Dean Foscarini and Emily Whitham, and local radio personalities Alison Donnellan and Jordan Peters.

Leanne Hulm, General Manager of the Goulburn Valley Media Centre, said: “The launch of Weeknights is the next step in offering tailored content to our local community.

“This is a first- both for Southern Cross Media and the Goulburn Valley. With a combination of news and lifestyle presented across the half-hour, we’re doing something completely different- but entirely focused on and relevant to our region. I’d ask everyone to make the switch.”

Weeknights begins at 6:30pm on Monday March 21st.

25 Responses

  1. Fairly loose use of the term News on this forum. This is not a news program – its is a discussion/entertainment folly disguised as news. None of it is new/breaking it is talking weeks or months old issues in unedited interviews with a little overlay thrown in. Have watched three shows this week and yest to see any news.
    Early days but drive-in drive-out reporters backed by inane local radio “talent” hardly compares to a prober newsroom with dedicated staff breaking stories daily and we haven’t seen that from SC10 since last century.

  3. Sounds like advertorial based to me?? I hoped to be proved wrong as SC have no interest in screening anything more than the mandated minimum local content.

  5. Looks like I lied last week in my ‘TEN Evening News under 300,000’ post.

    I thought this was gonna be a network-wide programme in the same guise as WIN Corp’s poor woman’s version of ‘The Circle,’ called ‘Daily,’ which they inflicted on all their markets (including Perth & Adelaide) at 11am weekdays.

    This doesn’t look good for Network Ten, but should be great for Ten viewers in central Victoria if they watch from 5pm. From five they get Melbourne-skewed state & national news, then 6pm sees more focus on national & international stories, 6:30pm has very local news & maybe a laugh at 7pm.

    Let’s just hope Southern Cross Ten is capable of moving ‘Weeknights’ down thirty minutes if TEN decide to move George Negus up one.

  6. @Camo. I was a stringer for WIN news on the far south coast for a few years and we used to shoot the story and WIN news journos voiced and did stand ups in wollongong. maybe thats how they’ll do it.

  8. Shepparton seems a weird place to start this off for starts Shepparton is not the biggest market area nor is it a big city, SC also has no origin in the market . I agree with Moe that they should of started this off in the original Southern Cross TV8 markets as their is more chances of people going back to the SC for local content

  11. I agree with Moe, SC Ten won’t go anywhere near the markets where there is both 7 Local News & WIN News especially in QLD.
    There isn’t a audience for a 3rd local news anyway.

  12. yes yes yes ..we need more places for talent in front of camera ( and behind) to get real time on air experience . That is how so many of the folks in metro media got there start .

  14. this starts the death nell for regional camera operators….it already started with WIN in WA though…but here in the east…this is the first and more likely to be the way regional news will go Jouno Cam where the journalist is the camo…i congratulate them on one hand for the news program…but worry on how well their journos will be able to do both roles…. and i think it will be the start of a new rollout of “weeknights” across the Sth X Network

  15. Just seems “Weeknights” is not the kind of title or content that will get local viewers.

    Why not just go with local news. That’s what people want.

    Call it what it is

    “Ten Local News”

    or

    “Ten News: Goulburn Valley”

  16. And last night Prime Albury announced that the local news is going to be at 6pm from March 21st.

    I thought all the Prime local news was going to come from Canberra but there was no mention of that. The impression was it would still come from Albury.

  17. >Any insight as to why SC Ten chose Goulburn Valley, Vic as the only city to do this in?

    GLV is the ‘heritage’ station for SC Ten, the one that kicked off the Southern Cross Network. It’s also the place that broadcast the last local bulletin in Victoria before it was axed.

    It also is a good place to let the program gain an audience slowly, unlike Newcastle and Canberra where there is very strong and local competition from NBN/WIN. I doubt they will go anywhere with both a WIN and Prime/7 Local bulletin.

    It would be good if they did a bulletin for Darwin though, I think they still air the Melbourne news.

  19. I wonder if this is a trial to see how it goes, then progressively go to other areas. Start off with a small area and work it’s way over the rest of the network. For me personally it makes perfect sense

  22. David
    Any insight as to why SC Ten chose Goulburn Valley, Vic as the only city to do this in?

    Over larger cities like Newcastle, Canberra, Cairns etc?

  24. What a shame this new local production will be going head to head against the local Win News Bulletin, I would like to be able to watch both…

  25. This is an interesting report. Several years ago Southern Cross Media closed down their Townsville studios which provided local news to a large viewing audience, including Cairns, western Qld, parts of SA, to name a few areas. This was done to save money and it was said because it the local news wasn’t rating .

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