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Nine News boss Fiona Dear: “I understand why some of my competitors are taking risks”

Nine News boss is generous when asked for her thoughts on Seven News taking risks with their format.

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Nine News boss Fiona Dear has given an interview to Mediaweek about Nine bulletins and ratings.

Although it avoids quotes of the complaints which have surrounded the news division she did offer generous thoughts regarding changes being introduced by Anthony De Ceglie at Seven News.

“My short answer would be news is news. That’s the short answer,” said Dear about any difference between the Nine and Seven product at 6pm. But she had more to offer though.

“That comes with a but. I am focusing and our teams and focusing on delivering news.

“However, I do respect the audience and the changing audience and the younger audience. We fully realise that audiences these days are after a lot more than those regular rounds that made up the news of the 1980s, those half-hour bulletins. The one-hour bulletins have changed things. The audience has changed things. Technology has changed things.

“While news is news and will always be that, we also need to give them a bit extra. I want to make sure that we give them everything. We give them the news of the day, but we also tell them about things that they care about or things affecting them, whether that be in their world around them or the greater world.”

Dear is OK with experimentation in the news hour. “We have to take risks,” she said. “I understand why some of my competitors are taking risks. If we don’t take risks, we stagnate, and that is not good for any news bulletin.

“However, there are core things that we need to respect about our audience.”

Dear was certainly not about to unload on other news services. “I’m not going to disrespect my opposition. I’m not going to disrespect them because everyone in this industry works very hard at what they do.”

You can read more at Mediaweek

6 Responses

  1. “My short answer would be news is news.”
    But it isn’t. Actual ‘news’ has mostly been usurped by human interest fluff, celebrity gossip and sport.

  2. I understand that Ch9 News are introducing a Horrorscope section to frighten viewers into watching an item after the ad break. Scare-Bait. Eagle eyed viewers will also be encouraged to ring a number when they see a well-known product partially hidden in the background to win an opportunity to enter a draw for a ticket in a raffle. Blink-Bait. Not to be outdone Ch7 have purchased a gypsy outfit and a glass bowl for a “see the future” segment and their make-up dept are studying Romany features for prosthetics to be fitted to the presenter. Gypsy Rose Lee is not related to David Rose and his tune “The Stripper” will not become the News Theme. What a hoot that would be.

  3. The longer and longer promotions being inserted as news stories is starting to get really silly. The Olympics has especially allowed Nine to pull out all the stops and do everything from airline to food promotions disguised as sport stories. Of course there are the endless real estate promotional pieces, the ‘analysis’ of all the current phone deals (which turns out to be a promotion of the features of a single phone) and true insanity, the promotions for the Coles/Woolworths duopoly who simply do not need to advertise as they have agreed market segments and do not compete at all in reality.

    A bit of a rant but it is just so sad to go from say a 30 second story about massive lives lost in the Middle East to a four minute promo leading in to the ‘real’ four minute commercial break.

    Can’t we do a little better than this. Don’t we deserve a bit better as audiences?

    1. To a greater or lesser degree, all commercial TV bulletins (and obviously even moreso, programs like ACA and the brekky/mid-morning shows) include reports that are…well, obviously commercial in nature. And have for quite some time, even if the frequency may have increased more recently.

      I’m surprised that Fiona has remained fairly reserved about some of the things Seven News are doing though. Mark Humphries’ comedy segments in particular, come across as an obvious opportunity to cite Nine’s local reporting from the likes of Sydney’s Mike Dalton and Melbourne’s Allan Raskall as a generally more appropriate way of providing 6pm bulletin viewers with some light and shade after they’ve heard about all the world’s woes.

      As for the future of Nine News, I think we’re likely to see more multi-platform journalists (people covering the same story for TV, radio and online) and things like using NBN reports on Sydney’s bulletin rather than sending TCN people up North as they have in the past.

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