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TEN set to overhaul weekend bulletins

TEN will dump state-based bulletins in favour of a single, national bulletin.

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TEN will finally revamp its weekend news next month by dumping state-based bulletins in favour of a single, national bulletin.

The moves to switch up the weekend bulletins has been expected ever since TEN abandoned its local 6:30 bulletins and offered redundancies across the network.

But in a surprise move, the new weekend bulletin will run for 90 minutes from 5pm, mirroring its weekday bulletins.

A network spokesperson tells The Australian, “A national weekend bulletin gives us the opportunity to consolidate the studio resources from five local bulletins into a comprehensive, single national broadcast of exceptional quality.

“The excellent journalistic resources that TEN has in each state will play a key role in our weekend news coverage.”

The new bulletin is expected to feature a male and female reader, a male sports presenter and a female weather presenter. Perth viewers will have a “refresher between 8pm and 9.30pm” because of the time difference. None of the TEN presenters will lose their jobs because of the single bulletin.

But the 90 minutes could be a viewer overload, given most weekend bulletins struggle to fill a half hour on the slowest news days of the week. The final 30 minutes will also be up against Seven and Nine’s main bulletins, often some of the week’s highest ratings shows.

News Director Dermot O’Brien said, “We’ve got the ability to own five o’clock, we do five o’clock better than anybody. We have very strong five o’clock local news in all markets.”

38 Responses

  1. Ho Hum…*bored look*…..if I want news…I just go to ABC24….not just for bulletins but other interesting programs as well….with back ground to news and interviews and discussions…

  4. @ Adam, exactly right. One hour of local news seven nights a week: a simple, brilliant suggestion. I would even go so far as to suggest Sat and Sun only need 30 mins, given the slowness of the news on weekends.
    Seriously, are these people in touch with their audience at all? It is the weekend, people are generally out and about, not settling into their couches for 90 minutes of news that does not concern them/relate to their own backyard.
    What does this mean for my beloved AFL – they’ll just chop any broadcasts at 5pm regardless?

  6. I think alot of the networks still seem to forget that people can get the news on the go via the internet be it on there smartphones there laptops , tablets etc , i know there will always be need for television news but i think they overstate the importance of it.As ive said before ABC News at 30 mins no adds , no BS , as they use to say Just the facts Mam , just the facts.

  7. I think given they are still going to have to make a separate bulletin, Perth should have just kept theirs as state-based. It seems silly to say it’s a national bulletin, filmed specially for Perth. While I’m glad they’re doing it, it seems very… odd. Especially since TEN News in Perth gets decent numbers because Nine News does so badly.

  9. i thought that their 5pm ”news / Sports Tonight” double worked well enough until last year, until Ten decided to axe Sports Tonight, and then air 2 news services.

    90 minutes is an overkill

  11. Gee I;m going to miss the Qld Bulletins, we’ve got a lot going on in the Summertime with cyclones, floods, etc, so it’s nice to have that local input on the weekend, things like the Daniel Morcombe case that doesn’t get as much coverage from down south it’s good to have.
    A pity.

  12. wow TEN just made a fatal mistake on the back of all the prevous problems… nobody will watch this.

    They should stick to 1 hour local news everyday in every state.

    I have absolutely no interest in watching a Sydney studio news bulletin when I can watch so many other local versions.

  14. Wow; way to go, Ten.

    As someone said, also: daylight saving delayed news FTW!

    Weekends are slow news days. Always have been, and on normal circumstances, always will be.

    Good luck filling that 90 minutes up with news… unless you’re going to repeat it ten times over?

    Hey.. 10, ten.

    Probably their plan. 😉

  16. Back to the bad old days except it’s now ninety minutes – overload.

    And unless it doesn’t happen in Sydney, it won’t get a look-in.

    When will the accountants who run the network understand that we are a parochial country.

    We care about our own backyard, not someone in another state.

  20. I want Ten to commit to retaining the QLD bulletin in the new format: for one reason. No-one wants to watch 90mins of delayed news from interstate on a weekend.

    That’s right, when the changes happen, Daylight Saving will be in full swing.

  24. Who wants to watch a movie-length news bulletin on the weekend!? Especially a national one where presumably interstate stories irrelevant to most viewers are used to pad out the time? Who is running the ship at Ten?? Monkeys!?

  25. “We have very strong five o’clock local news in all markets.”

    Well there are certainly days when Nine’s First at Five News gives them a run for their money.
    I don’t see any big deal to having a National Bulletin for Weekends. I was in SA back in April and half the News stories there were Sydney based anyway

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