Today Tonight to be turfed?
Reports speculate that Today Tonight might be ditched as a cost-saving measure and Seven News could be expanded to one hour.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under News
It’s almost unthinkable. So far-fetched it couldn’t possible come to pass.
Reports today speculate that Today Tonight might be ditched by Seven as a cost-saving measure and Seven News could be expanded to one hour.
The Daily Telegraph reports Seven West Media boss Don Voelte is keen on the plans but Seven’s head of news and current affairs Peter Meakin was quick to shoot down the speculation yesterday, saying it is a decision that “makes absolutely no sense” denies the talk.
“We are not contemplating any such thing,” he said. “It would be the biggest free kick we could give our opposition.
“Bear in mind that this is a national program that invariably wins its timeslot. Why would we want to change that?”
It’s already on the record that Seven is reviewing its costs for its News and Current Affairs department and CEO Tim Worner has confirmed, “I would suggest that our newsrooms will be operating differently in 2013.”
Seven is also facing dwindling numbers on its news services in Sydney and Melbourne (down to 259,000 for the latter this week).
There are also state-based editions of TT with separate hosts in Adelaide and Perth, that could be under consideration.
The show’s other concern is that TT skews old, often reflected by the show’s content on electricity bills, pensioner fights, and supermarket wars.
Yet Meakin is correct. TT is a regular timeslot winner and when it is working in tandem with Seven News, the pair set up the network for the evening.
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- Tagged with Seven News, Today Tonight
54 Responses
I was thinking more of a 6 to 7pm Young Person’s Market.Let the Older Folk have their News/Price is Right/Deal or No Deal under this proposed change.How about a Family Guy/American Dad Double to give Eleven with their Simpsons/Neighbours a good run for their money and whatever else the other digital/Pay TV channels show as an alternative to News and the jokes that passes for Current Affairs these days.Ten Tried with Hinch and later Alan Jones between 1992 and 1994 and it didn’t last from there on It was a mix of Sitcoms and Reality TV that took over amongst other things.
Rather than going all news for an hour,why not try and get the young market at 6.30 pm. One would think an hour of news would also skew old. Maybe strip a reality show at 6.30.
The commercial networks have been misleading viewers for years in using the term “News & Current Affairs” to describe their 6pm to 7pm timeslot.
Skimming over real stories while hyping up lightweight, inconsequential gossip and celebrity trivia is not news. It’s just New Idea with moving pictures, a triumph of style over substance.
The saddest thing is that so many of the people who watch this garbage actually believe that they are being kept informed by it!
I think rather than dumping TT, a total change in format would make more sense. I’d love to see some serious old school investigative journalism. The Mike Willesse – John Hewson birthday cake interview anyone?
Aussies are currently starved of thought provoking and intellectually stimulating tv. Is it any wonder that programs like Four Corners and Q&A have such a loyal following.
Enough of the mind numbing, irrelevant and dumbed down drivel that is served up under the banner of ‘current affairs’.
Cassie: TEN tried that and it was you heavy for people at that hour remember?
I seem to remember Jana Wendt resigning from ACA because of the crap she had to introduce. And it’s been downhill ever since. I’m sure Tracey winces at the beginning of every program – but a girl’s gotta eat.
@Mac
Your second paragraph is spot in it’s assessment of these shows in IMO.
Unlike you, I think the rot started while Mike Munro was still behind the desk, but that’s a moot point. I’d love to see these shows axed but we couldn’t be that lucky.
An Ideal Set Up would be a 4:30 to 5:30pm News Double,Then You push back your game shows to fill the gap to 6:30pm providing an alternative to the multi channel sitcoms and whatever else they show and How I met your Mother,Scrubs or that 70’s show or whatever else Seven can find can provide a decent lead in for Home and Away(I am not sure what They plan to do for the Adelaide Market but this could work nationally if done right).
They claim TT is no 1 in South Australia but not everyone is home at 6:30pm on a weeknight,some of us work or go to the gym evenings or are aware of the other non current affairs options out there.Give me Neighbours,Scrubs or an SBS Cooking Show as per what my doctors are currently not to over stimulate the brain and I will be happy.
K thx mac and jc.When i asked about weakness of nine in West and South Australia..I meant it runs down the line..not just in regards to Aca and Tt.I certainly learned something new…had no idea that Seven started a full six years before Nine in Perth…I can speculate that maybe Perthians still hold a bit of a grudge against Nine because of that initial snub.Maybe some things are hard to know..what makes Qld and Nsw nrl crazy and Victorians afl?I find out more and more idiosyncrasies of this great country all the time.
@loppy, George Negus could probably answer that question for you.
@Nicks: The antipathy or more correctly ambivalence towards Nine in Perth stems from the fact that they started here a full six years after Seven did. Cos of that Seven has always had the upper hand in ratings, ad revenue and popularity, especially news and current affairs.
30 minute news on either.Put a Sitcom of some sort on between 6:30 and 7pm even if it’s an eighties or nineties kind of show.
@Nicks : I’ve lived in both SA & WA so from my perspective, the turning point was after Ray Martin, Mike Munro fronted ACA and those days the program seemed more inclined towards digging deeper into serious stories. To be perfectly honest, I can’t even remember who was fronting TT in those days, but Nine certainly were leading the charge.
Whilst there was always a bit of tabloid influence, it didn’t seem as obvious until after Munro left and from that point, both ACA and TT seemed to be either interchangeable or trying to outdo each other with squalid standards of journalism. Today, both shows are as bad as each other for OTT sensationalism, promos that don’t fairly represent the actual content, petty scapegoat chasing designed to provoke ranty thoughtless anger from people incapable of filtering through the crap.
That’s just how I see it. I’ll be reading other readers views with great interest.
That’d be much more preferable than TT
Why don’t they have a national news bulletin.
We need more hard hitting current affairs shows that are unbiased and put the heat on the politicians. We dont get it on the ABC anymore
we know what will give us cancer, you know what foods to avoid, we know what diets work and what diets don’t we know what to look out for when it comes to a scam, and we really don’t care about our neighbours and the only neighbours who do fight are the coke head bogans.
aca and tt are about bs stories that are more for the morning show and variety shows (which we don’t have any more) aca and tt should be more like 60 minutes and sunday night, the stories that matter.
I really don’t care where I can get cheaper full or cheaper groceries, by travelling to these other places I am spending more money.
axing tt? would be a great idea, axing aca?? maybe re-brand aca as today tonight and it can be a follow up to the stories done on today,
TT is not shown on Prime in in country NSW. Instead we get Local news at 6:00 and Seven News at 6:30. If Seven news is 1 hour then there would be no time for the local news so this would not work for Prime viewers.
This is what happens when the FTA networks pay too much for the sporting rights of particular sports. It has been public knowledge for a while that 7 has paid way too much for the afl rights. and so someting within the network will have to make way to pay for it. 7 is in a pretty sound position to handle it, don’t think TT will go but some other programs will suffer. but God help us when 9 have to start forking out the money to the nrl. it has been made public that they will be losing $42m a year on the deal. you can’t tell me that somewhere along the line there will be shows and staff axed at 9. lets see who is cocky then Mr Gyngell.
It should be turfed on a matter of quality not quantity.
Please, please do this 7.
Kuttyswood, C7 News in Brisbane has nothing to fear … as long as Sharon Ghydella remains the host. ;>)
7 news for one hour, Today Tonight from 7pm and Home and Away from 7.30 could work.
Being relatively a newcomer to Australia,can someone explain the antipathy towards nine in South and West Australia?How did it start..seems it can’t be on-air staff or nine would change them soon enough.
I fear this will lead to the further ‘dumbification’ of news, with the usual content of TT creeping in as ‘news’, its bad enough as it is!
A stable early evening should be priceless to a tv network. Why rock the boat? Look where it got ten.