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Seven, Nine extend Saturday News bulletins.

And you thought Saturday networks were struggling to come up with the news.

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2013-10-13_0142As if we didn’t have too much news on telly already, both Nine and Seven are now running one hour Saturday bulletins -traditionally a day when they struggle to find news beyond sporting events.

The weekday battle between Nine and Seven News is fierce, especially since Nine has taken the lead in Sydney and Melbourne.

“Our objective is leadership,” Seven’s News director Rob Raschke, told the News Corp.

“(This year) we have expanded our news presence. Nine reacts to us. They’ll likely keep reacting and copying us.”

The reality is both bulletins are more cost effective than producing new local content for Saturday nights.

Meanwhile Nine News boss Darren Wick says they’re not taking their win for granted.

“We are truly appreciative of the trust our viewers have placed in us,” Wick said recently.

“This result only makes us more determined to work harder to provide the most accurate, the most credible and the most up-to-date news service we possibly can.”

24 Responses

  1. TV stations are becoming more like ABC24. One long news services get repetitive and boring. Should be less long news services and more shorter news breaks. Radio news is enough for most of us. C’mon give us something different to watch……

  2. Jason – mate we’re talking about Saturday news, as this thread implies… on weeknights it’s still 30 minutes, but I think sooner or later Seven and Nine will look to go to one hour there as well. Cheers!

  9. i watch seven news i didnt even notice until i looked a the clock on my computer and it was 6.30 and they were still doing overseas news and i thought they must be running over time tonight then i went and had a look at the tv program guide and it said the news was going until 7 i switched over to nine and the same thing

  10. @MM – The point is that a News Director is claiming something that’s blatantly wrong (well, what’s new there?).
    “if there is news to be heard lets hear about it.” – Thanks ABC24 for doing just that.
    @markninety – Nine Sydney must be doing a special wrap-up for WIN as they’re still 30 mins Nine News, complete with the throw by Nine to “and now here’s ACA” (which isn’t) at 6:30, then local news. No idea Nine was now one hour.
    @tezza1972 – and Today/Sunrise/Mornings/Morning Show on weekends.

  11. It makes total sense to have one hour bulletins on the weekend if the networks believe in quality sports news. With summer we will have cricket, a league, NBL, tennis, EPL, motor sport amongst others.
    David I think the problem is the networks don’t want to do the hard work rather than lack of news

  12. Just saw a promo for our local Southern Cross News ( Hobart) going to one hour through the week. I actually prefer the TEN news and then the 7TWO news as the local Southern Cross News and the local WIN news being very lightweight news services.

  13. Nine in Brisbane have also had a 1 hour bulletin for a few weeks also. What are Seven on about? Sounds like he doth protest too much.
    I agree with tezza1972 that we all know who are the copycats.

  14. Channel Nine In Perth Has Been Running Hour News
    On Saturday Night For 3 Weeks Now.
    Seven Are The Copy Cats.
    Good To See Nine News In East Killing Seven News.

    Perth are still watching Seven. Not Me.

    Seven Still In Perth Have The Same readers For Last
    25 years they will be on Tv till they cant talk anymore.

  15. I’m with Dr_Rudi. It’s like the commercial networks have no idea there is a whole world of news out there. They seem to suffer from some delusion that everything revolves around Australian politics, sport and the curious notion that something that happens in the Sydney or Melbourne suburbs is worthy of considerably more airtime (not to mention receiving a pointless live cross to a presenter on the scene) than something that happened overseas… even when hundreds or thousands of people may have died in an overseas event. But wait, here’s a three minute story on One Direction.

    But of course news on the commercial networks isn’t about news, is it? It’s about entertainment, eyeballs and ratings. *sigh*

  18. “Saturday bulletins -traditionally a day when they struggle to find news beyond sporting events”

    There is an entire world of news, maybe the commercial stations could look beyond the national border, and the US news-feeds for a change?

    Perhaps a feature on the Italian national day of mourning for asylum seekers…

  20. Not sure what planet Raschke is on. Nine launches Nine News Now…Seven follows with The Daily Edition. Nine extends Saturday bulletin to one hour…Seven follows a couple of weeks later. More broadly, TT was a reaction to ACA…Sunday Night was a reaction to 60 Mins (albeit 30 years late)…Sunrise was a reaction to Today…and so the list goes on. Even the graphics used by Seven News are an attempt to replicate Nine’s

  21. What is this Seven bloke smoking ?
    Nine in Melbourne have been running a one news on saturday night for 3 weeks yet it was only last night Seven ran for an hour,so it’s Seven copying Nine.

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