Nine extends News around the country
Nine News quietly rolled out extended 6pm bulletins in Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth last night.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under News
After months of trialling a one hour bulletin in Sydney, Nine News quietly rolled out extended 6pm bulletins in Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth last night.
The change pushed A Current Affair to 7pm, despite promos the day before indicating it would screen at 6:30pm. EPGs were also amended yesterday.
Nine began regular one hour bulletins during the NSW bushfires in October and continued them to gauge how it would affect ratings and to see what demands it made on their resources. It had previously indicated it was undecided the move was permanent or rolling out to other states. Yesterday it apparently decided.
Fairfax reports late last year Nine’s Director of News, Darren Wick, said of the decision, “It’s a weird one because we’re back in a strong position with news nationally… (so) the temptation is not to do anything, but if you change is it better to change from a position of strength than a position of weakness? These are the questions we ask ourselves all the time.
“We’re not decided yet, but it’s just been convenient to do it this way and it’s been a rare opportunity to have a look at how it works. And the feedback from the audience has been really good.”
Last night’s Melbourne bulletin juxtaposed the traditional News / Sport / Weather format with an earlier weather update and more News following the Sport. Presumably these are moves to stop viewers turning off, but it’s a bold flow that may attract some comment.
The two most obvious questions concerning the move are whether Nine will keep the change into the ratings season in February and whether Seven will follow suit. Both have been airing one hour Saturday bulletins.
Seven is unlikely to reveal its hand, but has known the move may be coming. While it has been trailing Nine in the 6pm News battle, the change may be its best opportunity in a long time.
But that remains to be seen. Watch this space.
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- Tagged with A Current Affair, Nine News
39 Responses
In regional Qld A Current Affair seems to have disappeared for good. It was on Gem at 7pm as we have a local news at 6pm, followed by the national news at 6.30, but now its all been pushed back. to allow for an hour long national news.
It would be nice if everything was explained to us the viewers.
@Nick she sure is. Much prefer her to Peter Overton. At the very least she should be made the regular weekend presenter.
what will happen to WIN local news will it be pushed back to 5:30pm
now this is interesting because NBN television Newcastle has been presenting one hour news since 1974
Nine Melbourne is doing great – same cannot be said for Seven which now has too much human interest stories and lack of international news.
Having seen all the local news productions over the last year, nine Melbourne is by far the most professionally produced product out there. From a Sydney sider this is hard to swallow.
What a great win 9 News in Melb had with the 1st 1 hour news service, thrashing both 7 news Melb and TT.
People may say they don’t like it but figures show its going great.
Thanks but no thanks,unless there is something ‘Big’ an hour of news will be just padded up with Advertorials masquerading as content….
ACA and TT are tired format, that have gone tabloid, need hard hitting journalism for them to survive
Viewers rejected Negus on TEN, which had plenty of newsy stories. It’s as if Seven and Nine viewers want the tabloid style.
One hour news would be good, but only if they dumped ACA altogether.
Re: Bogues, Seven could try doing what SBS used to do, and split news and sport. 30 mins news/dash of sport/weather, 30 mins Summer Bay. Then after something with broad appeal, 30 mins sport/comedy. This program could screen earlier on Mate.
I think half hour is great…its concise and not too much room for padding. As it is 7’s news has lots of filler stories and not news. And as for Prime 7 not-so-local news out of Tamworth for the Coast well…its full of non-stories. We also have NBN news here and it has no format. Its all over the place. It would be great to have 1/2 hour 9 and then some NBN local stories.