Ten says Newsnight is old news

Only a few days ago Network Ten had all guns blazing about a new-format late night news program to be hosted by journalist Hamish Macdonald (pictured).

The program was to be called Ten Newsnight and debut on Monday, 4 June at 10.30pm.

Now it seems that while the bulletin is still going ahead, the name is not.

Instead, Ten Newsnight will just be the far more traditionally-named Ten Late News, the same title of the late night news bulletin that Ten axed last September.

Ten is reported to have said that the Newsnight name was merely a working title for the purpose of getting news of the show’s launch out to the press, insisting that the last-minute name change was to reflect a simpler, more concise brand for the new program.  One wonders if the network was somehow assuming that the viewing audience would not have the cognitive skills to figure out what a program called Ten Newsnight might specifically entail?

While it is certainly not uncommon for new programs to launch to the public with different titles to those proposed in the development stages, Ten’s media release issued on Monday left no doubt as to what they intended to call this program.

However it has come to light via the online forum Media Spy that Ten’s change of heart may have potentially been prompted in part by the Nine Network trademarking the names “Newsnight” and “9 Newsnight” several years ago – while pay-TV news network Sky News Australia also has an established program called News Night, although such similarities didn’t stop Ten naming its early morning show Breakfast when ABC already had its own ABC News Breakfast.

Despite Ten opting for the pre-loved title for the new program they claim it will be a different news experience compared to its late night predecessor presented for many years by Sandra Sully, with the new program incorporating a mix of news, interviews, entertainment, sport and interaction with social media.

Ten Late News is, at this stage, still set to debut on Monday, 4 June, at 10.30pm and will screen Monday to Thursday nights.

Source: Media Spy, TV Tonight, The Australian

Ten launches into Newsnight

The Ten Network has announced plans to re-enter the late news arena with the launch of a new program to be hosted by journalist Hamish Macdonald.

Ten Newsnight, according to News Director Anthony Flannery, will not be “a traditional news bulletin”:

“It will cover the staples of news bulletins, such as headlines of the day, breaking news, sport, weather and finance.  But Ten Newsnight will also include features such as live interviews, entertainment, and segments that use social media to reveal what people are talking about and what will be the next day’s big stories.”

“It will be contemporary and at times it will be provocative. We will tackle challenging topics and issues. We will give a different perspective to big stories and big issues.”

Starting his career at regional network WIN, Macdonald then went abroad where he worked at Channel 4 in the United Kingdom and at Qatar-based news channel Al Jazeera English.  He joined Ten at the end of 2010 primarily for the role of senior foreign correspondent for George Negus’ evening current affairs program but also for other reporting and presenting roles at the network, including guest-hosting The Project and The Circle and compiling the recent Ten News special report Bikie Wars: Here And Now. 

Earlier this year Macdonald was a nominee for the Graham Kennedy Award for Most Outstanding New Talent at the TV Week Logie Awards.  He has also been nominated for prestigious Walkley and Quill awards.

Given Ten’s big-budget news expansion last year failed to pay any dividends and this year’s launch of Breakfast (pictured) is also falling well short of making any inroads against the domination of Sunrise and Today, the launch of Ten Newsnight is a risky proposition but it does fill a gap in the coverage of late news on commercial free-to-air television since the axing of Ten Late News last September.

Ten Newsnight, with Macdonald and sports presenter Brad McEwan, will screen Monday to Thursday nights at 10.30pm from Monday, 4 June.

The Playlist revisits the Arcade

Soap opera historian and TV commentator Andrew Mercado recently paid tribute to Australia’s most famous soapie flop, Arcade, on his Showcase program The Playlist. 

Featured in the program last week was Arcade cast member, TV Week Gold Logie winner Lorrae Desmond and one of the show’s creators, David Sale, to discuss with Mercado just what went wrong with the show that was hoped to be the ratings hit of the 1980s.

Sale was the creator and writer for the successful drama Number 96 (1972-77) and in 1979 was hired along with Number 96’s former executive producer Bill Harmon and story editor Johnny Whyte to turn the then 0-10 Network’s concept of a shopping centre-themed drama into a prime-time series that could take on ratings heavyweights like Willesee At Seven and The Sullivans.  The team came up with a quirky mix of characters that would run the stores that made up the fictional shopping centre in a series that would feature a broad mix of comedy and drama.

Arcade was rushed into production late in 1979 and debuted across the newly-relaunched Ten Network in a movie-length episode on Sunday night, 20 January 1980, before settling into a regular half-hour timeslot each weeknight with the hope that it would gain a following before the ratings season was due to kick off in February.

Despite Ten spending a fortune on constructing a mock shopping centre in its main Sydney studio, and hiring a cast featuring veteran performers such as Desmond (pictured, as newsagent proprietor Molly Sparks), Peggy Toppano, Mike Dorsey, Syd Heylen and Aileen Britton, the end result left viewers and critics dumbfounded by some fairly rudimentary storytelling and some stilted performances, including one infamous scene where a young actress is shown to be virtually reading straight from the script.

After copping much criticism and dismal ratings the series, originally heralded by Ten as being “a breath of fresh air”, ended up being removed from the schedule after six weeks – a duration that in today’s terms seems like a lifetime considering its shaky start.

The upside from the experience is that two of the show’s stars, Desmond and Heylen, went from Arcade to long-running roles in the popular series A Country Practice, while some of the show’s younger cast members, such as Jeremy Kewley, Tracy Mann and Christine Harris, went on to have their own career success. 

With only around 30 episodes aired before Ten pulled the plug (and hopefully they’re all still in the archive) and given its legacy of being such a monumental flop, Arcade seems a prime candidate for getting a DVD release so that it can be re-lived in all its bargain basement glory.

The Playlist is an entertaining panel discussion of all things related to television – although at five minutes per episode it is far too brief – and appears every Monday and Friday evening on pay-TV channel Showcase and is repeated the following day.  It can also be viewed online at http://www.theplaylist.com.au.

Source: The Playlist – Arcade of broken dreams

Time’s up for 6.30

The Ten Network has pulled the pin on its current affairs flagship 6.30 With George Negus.

Perceiving some public frustration with the often-tacky, high-rotation style of journalism employed by long-running programs Today Tonight and A Current Affair, Ten last year hired veteran journalist George Negus to front the new show that promised a more substantial style of reporting.  Also signed up for the program were reporters Hamish Macdonald and Hugh Riminton.

6PM With George Negus was launched in January to a modest public response – attracting 606,000 viewers across the five cities on its first night – but failed to maintain any sort of positive ratings momentum and its figures would continue to fall.  A timeslot and name change to 6.30 failed to make any significant gains against the Seven and Nine network giants and even at times struggled to keep above the ratings of Neighbours, the program that it replaced that had been shifted to digital channel Eleven.

Last night 6.30 With George Negus was watched by 340,000 viewers compared to A Current Affair’s 875,000 and Today Tonight’s 1,143,000.  Neighbours on Eleven was watched by 295,000.

The final edition of 6.30 With George Negus goes to air on 28 October.  Starting the following Monday will be an expanded one-hour format for The 7PM Project – now to start at 6.30pm and be re-named The Project.

Negus will continue to work in an advisory role with Ten’s news and current affairs programs and will return to his former role as a regular panelist on The Project.

In a media statement released today Negus said:

“Working on 6.30 has been incredibly fulfilling. From reporters to production crew, we have worked together to bring viewers a high quality, soil-breaking program and some of the year’s biggest stories and interviews. We are immensely proud of all we have achieved. The truth is that unfortunately a program like 6.30 was ahead of its time, but who knows about the future?”

“Though sadly 6.30 has come to an end, I’m looking forward to getting back with my mates at The Project. They’ve also broken new ground with their irreverent approach to what’s going on around us, it’s my kind of tongue-in-cheek program.”

The cancellation of 6.30 With George Negus comes after the recent axing of Ten Late News and the stand-alone edition of Sports Tonight.  The network has also axed its long-running music program Video Hits and walked away from any further commitment to broadcasting AFL.

Ten has a new CEO, James Warburton, and News Director, Anthony Flannery, starting in the new year.

Ten News gets a new boss

The Ten Network has announced the appointment of Anthony Flannery to head its News and Current Affairs division, effective in the new year.

He replaces Dermot O’Brien, who had been in the role since Jim Carroll stepped down earlier this year.  O’Brien now takes on the role of network editorial manager and continues as Ten’s Melbourne news director.

Flannery is currently the head of News and Current Affairs for the New Zealand national broadcaster, TVNZ, but had previously worked at the Nine Network on A Current Affair, Today and Nine News.

In his new role at Ten, Flannery will be reporting directly to new chief executive officer James Warburton, who also joins the network in January.

The News and Current Affairs portfolio will no doubt give its new boss some challenges as it has taken some battering this year.  Starting confidently back in January with its new 6PM With George Negus and Ten Evening News, lack lustre ratings saw the Negus program moved to 6.30pm, the 5.00pm weeknight newscast expanded to 90 minutes, and the hastily-reinstated 5.00pm news bulletin on weekends.  All have continued to receive ordinary ratings numbers.

The Late News has recently been axed after twenty years on air and the weekend newscast has adopted a national 90-minute format, which debuted to poor ratings last Sunday.

Melbourne newsreader George Donikian has resigned after twenty years with the network, and Ten is also set to farewell veteran newsreader Ron Wilson – after more than three decades with Ten – when his contract expires later this year.  Newsreader Deborah Knight has also been moved from her role as co-presenter of the 5.00pm newscast in Sydney.

The News department was also subjected to staff redundancies as Ten undertook a strategic review of its entire operation.

However, on a slightly more positive note, a new breakfast show is set to debut early next year to take on ratings giants Today and Sunrise.  The show is to be presented by Dr Andrew Rochford – a contributor to The 7PM Project and currently a Sydney breakfast radio presenter – and a female presenter to be appointed.

Source: The Australian, The Australian

Weekend brings change to Ten News

Some changes happening to Ten News this weekend – one that signals the end of a significant era and another that starts what Ten hopes will spark renewed interest in a brand that has taken something of a battering this year in both ratings and scheduling.

Tomorrow night will see the final sign-off from the late night edition of Ten News.  The bulletin, launched in 1991 at the height of the first Gulf War, had been fronted by Eric Walters and then Anne Fulwood.  The popularity of the bulletin saw Fulwood poached by the Seven Network in 1995 to launch their own 10.30pm newscast.  Sandra Sully (pictured) was then promoted to front Ten’s late news bulletin and it was a role that she made her own as Ten’s late news presence went on to outlast the equivalent news bulletins from Seven and Nine.

When Ten announced significant changes to their news schedule last year, Sully made an emotional farewell from the Late News as she was preparing to present the Sydney edition of the new 6.30pm Ten Evening News.  The move was short-lived as the state-based 6.30pm newscasts failed to make significant inroads against the national Today Tonight and A Current Affair programs.  With the cancellation of the 6.30pm bulletin in March, Sully was moved back to familiar territory as the late night newsreader.

However, following a review of the network’s strategic direction and programming, Ten has since decided to axe the late night Ten News bulletin and the Sports Tonight segment which has accompanied it since 1993 – although the Sports Tonight brand will continue within Ten’s 5.00pm newscast.  The programs join the 24-year-old Video Hits and the all-sports schedule for One HD as casualties of the network’s new strategic direction headed by interim CEO Lachlan Murdoch.

Although Sully will read her final bulletin tonight, the final edition of the late night Ten News and Sports Tonight programs will go to air tomorrow night from midnight in Melbourne, Adelaide, Darwin, Tasmania and Perth – bumped to the later timeslot due to the special Grand Final edition of Before The Game earlier in the evening – and 10.30pm in Sydney and Brisbane.  From next week, Sully moves to Sydney’s Ten News At Five weeknight newscast alongside Bill Woods.  Where this leaves the bulletin’s current female presenter Deborah Knight (pictured) is to be seen although some reports suggest she may be a candidate for Ten’s planned new breakfast program.

On Sunday, Ten News launches a revamp of its weekend evening newscast by replacing the existing half-hour bulletins at 5.00pm and 6.00pm with a single, national 90-minute program from 5.00pm fronted by Natarsha Belling and Matt Doran (pictured) joined by Sports Tonight presenter Rob Canning and weather presenter Magdalena Roze.

The move to expand the weekend bulletin to 90 minutes is puzzling given that the weeknight Ten News At Five bulletin has seen its numbers fall since it adopted the 90-minute format in April, and the new national format on weekends undoes the move to state-based weekend news coverage that was instigated in January.  Time will tell how viewers will react to the national long-form bulletin as opposed to the shorter, state-based bulletins offered by competitors Seven and Nine at 6.00pm.

In other changes within Ten News, Melbourne-based newsreader George Donikian (pictured) has announced his resignation from the network.  Donikian, the founding newsreader at multicultural Channel 0/28 (now SBS) in 1980, joined the Ten Network in 1991 after a stint with the Nine Network.  For most of his two decades at Ten he led the Adelaide newscast for Ten News, which for several years was presented from Ten’s Melbourne studios.  This year saw Donikian move to the Melbourne-based Ten News At Five as Mal Walden moved to the new 6.30pm bulletin.  With the later bulletin cancelled, Walden returned to the 5.00pm newscast and Donikian moved to weekends.  The revamp of the weekend newscast to a national format, effectively bumping him from the schedule, is reported to have been the “last straw” for the newsreader.  He has told media that he felt it was now time to become a “free agent”.

Source: Adelaide Now, The Australian, News.com.au

Ten to tackle Today and Sunrise?

The Ten Network is reported to be looking at reworking its early morning timeslot with plans to launch a breakfast news program.

Just a week ago the network announced it was cutting its workforce by around 100 while it continues to undertake a strategic review of its on-air offerings.  It has axed weekend stalwart Video Hits and, while nothing has been formally announced, is believed to have also cut Sports Tonight.  The network has also recently walked away from AFL coverage beyond the end of this season and has been re-working its high-definition channel One away from a purely sports-oriented format.  But despite the cuts there is hope that a revitalised early morning timeslot will tap into additional advertising revenue while utilising news resources already in place at the network.

Ten currently presents one-hour bulletins at 6.00am and 9.00am each weekday but the proposed new program – tentatively titled AM – appears set to replace them both and may provide an improved lead-in to talk show The Circle.

But Ten’s planned new venture is entering into what is already a crowded marketplace – with Sunrise and Today leading the morning ratings and ABC News Breakfast and Sky News’ First Edition and AM Agenda providing an alternative.

The network is believed to have Today co-host and TV Week Gold Logie winner Karl Stefanovic (pictured) at the top of its wish list for hosting the new program, though this is unlikely to come to fruition given his apparent desire to move away from breakfast television and the prime-time exposure he has gained at Nine – through A Current Affair, 60 Minutes and Nine News coverage.

Breakfast news television is not exactly new at Ten.  In 1981 the network launched Good Morning Australia, a program that re-ignited the format in Australia several years after the Seven Network had axed its Today show in the mid-1970s.  The launch of Good Morning Australia was later followed by Nine launching The National Today Show (now Today) in 1982, with Seven launching TVAM in the late ‘80s and then Sunrise which has continued in various formats since the late ‘90s. 

Good Morning Australia continued until it was axed at the end of 1992 and the name was then re-assigned to Bert Newton’s mid-morning chat show.

Source: The Australian

South West WA ready to go digital

Regional WA’s two commercial networks, GWN7 and WIN, have announced the date that their respective networks will be switching on digital transmission in Bunbury and the South West region of the state.

The switch on, scheduled for 28 July, will not only see the launch of digital transmission of the primary channels GWN7 and WIN but will also include Ten West and multi-channels 7TWO, 7mate, GO!, GEM, One and Eleven.

The commercial channels will join the existing local digital broadcasts of ABC and SBS.

Although GWN7, WIN and Ten West launched digital broadcasts in Kalgoorlie-Boulder, Mawson, Mingenew and Karratha a year ago, their transmissions included only the primary channels.

Bunbury will be the first market in Regional WA to receive the extra commercial multi-channels, with the rollout expected to be completed across the state by early 2012.

GWN7 Chief Executive Officer Doug Edwards welcomed the new digital era for local viewers:

“Regional WA viewers will now be able to enjoy the whole digital experience. Put simply – this means more choice of free-to-air television with superior quality picture and sound. With the addition of 7TWO and 7mate, we are now offering greater choice for our audience”.

WIN’s manager of Legal, Regulatory & Network Affairs Shirley Brown said the digital launch brings some equality to viewers when compared to their city cousins:

“The roll out of the full suite of digital channels has been a long wait for the viewers of regional WA, we are pleased that the wait is nearly over and viewers will receive the same services as viewers in Perth have received for some time.”

Regional Western Australia is one of the last markets in Australia to receive digital broadcasts of commercial television – more than a decade after the first digital television broadcasts were launched in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.  As a result, Regional WA currently has the lowest conversion rate to digital television – with only 58 per cent of households currently converted to digital television, well below the national average of 79 per cent.

Regional WA is set to complete the transition to digital television with the shutdown of all existing analogue signals in the second half of 2013.

Video Hits suffers in Ten cutbacks

The new management at the Ten Network, led by acting CEO Lachlan Murdoch, have this week made their move towards cutting costs as it continues to dismantle some of the strategies laid down by the previous management and re-establish the network’s low-cost business model.

The network is looking to cut around 60 staff through voluntary redundancies – including 22 editorial positions – in what Murdoch told staff in an internal email is “a necessary but inevitably painful restructure”.  If the required number of voluntary redundancies are not met then the network may look at forced redundancies.

Another 40 non-contract positions have reportedly already been cut as the network shuts down its publicity and marketing arms in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth and abolishes its separate sales teams for Ten and digital channels One and Eleven.

Ten is also believed to be reviewing its program and on-air presenting line-up, with particular attention to its news and current affairs portfolio, as it looks to rein in some of the costs incurred by the recent investment in current affairs program 6.30 With George Negus and the launch of additional news bulletins.

The advent of digital channel Eleven is also said to have put financial pressures on the business.

High-profile names such as George Negus and Sandra Sully are believed to be safe, for now.

Late night stalwart Sports Tonight, which began back in 1993, is believed to have been axed as the network walks away from its role as joint broadcaster of AFL after ten years.  The network is also expected to allow some of its other sporting contracts to lapse, affecting coverage of sports such as basketball and netball, as high-definition channel One is strategically moving away from being a purely sports-oriented format.

But so far the only program to have been formally announced as being cancelled is a somewhat surprising one – Video Hits, currently hosted by Dylan Lewis and Faustina Agolley (pictured).

The weekend music program, which debuted on TEN10 Sydney in February 1987 (Melbourne’s ATV10 didn’t take up the program until almost a year later), is set to wind up with a retrospective of its marathon run on Saturday, 6 August.

In a press release issued today, programming chief David Mott acknowledged the contribution and longevity of the program:

"Video Hits' contribution to the network and the music industry over the past 24 years has been outstanding. Music and how people listen to it, watch it and enjoy it has changed dramatically in last few years and now is the perfect time for the institution that is Video Hits to sign off. The show will always hold a special place in Ten's history.”

Video Hits began purely as a compilation of music video clips at a time when a generational change was occurring in television, as studio productions like Countdown and Sounds were making way for dedicated music clip programs – with Rage, MTV, Night Shift and Video Hits all launching during 1987.

Video Hits later expanded its format to include interviews and live performances.  The show has helped establish the careers of various Australian artists, including Missy Higgins, Angus and Julia Stone and Art Vs Science.

The cancellation of Video Hits now leaves ABC1’s Rage as the only significant program on free-to-air television dedicated to music – and it is largely buried in an overnight timeslot – and with few variety programs on free-to-air television there are even fewer TV opportunities for the promotion of Australian recording artists and music industry in general.

Ten’s newly-appointed CEO, former Seven Network executive James Warburton, takes over the reigns from Murdoch in January.

Source: ABC, The Australian, Network Ten

The last bounce for Ten’s AFL

Network Ten has announced that it will walk away from AFL coverage at the end of this year’s season as it will not seek to enter into an agreement to take over any of the Seven Network’s commitment to the game from next year.

Network sports director David Barham told The Age:

"It is a bit of a shame. It's the choice of the network. It's purely a business decision.  Everyone is disappointed but understands the decision.

"We are really, really proud of what we achieved. I am proud of the people that I have worked with over the years. I think Ten should be recognised for the contribution it made to the game because no-one has done more for broadcasting the game than the Ten Network in NSW and Queensland.

"We put more game into NSW and Queensland in prime time than any other broadcaster in the history of the game. That was one of the reasons they (AFL) are expanding into these northern markets because of the real back-breaking work the Ten Network did over the last 10 years."

Ten’s commitment to AFL started with the 2002 season when they teamed up with Nine and Foxtel in a landmark five-year deal that saw the game’s television broadcast rights taken off Seven, which had broadcast the AFL and its predecessor – the VFL – for all but one season since 1957.

For the 2007-2011 rights deal, Ten partnered with Seven in a deal worth $780 million – at the time the largest sports broadcasting rights deal ever in Australia – with some games sold off to Foxtel.

Ten’s commitment to AFL was strengthened in 2009 with the launch of high-definition sports channel One, where AFL was the flagship of the schedule.  The channel enhanced its AFL coverage with programs including One Week At A Time.

Ten had been a bidding partner with Seven for the 2012-2016 contract but withdrew from the process at the last minute following the arrival of interim CEO Lachlan Murdoch. 

Under Murdoch, Ten has also wound back some sports programming from One in favour of special interest and general entertainment programming.  The removal of AFL from the schedule may see more changes to the channel’s schedule.

The Ten decision is expected to see its commentary team moved on, although Stephen Quartermain is expected to stay on as the network’s main sports anchor for Ten News in Melbourne. 

The future of One’s One Week At A Time and Ten’s long-running Before The Game beyond the end of this year is uncertain though there is some speculation that the latter may go across to Seven, a network whose track record with AFL-themed entertainment programming has been rather patchy.

In securing the free-to-air rights to the 2012-2016 seasons, Seven had the option of on-selling some of its weekly commitment of four free-to-air games to another network.  Up until now Ten was believed to be considering taking on two weekly games.  Nine is not believed to have been interested.

Now from 2012, Seven will broadcast four weekly games plus the Brownlow Medal, all finals and the Grand Final.  The network is also expected to utilise its high-definition channel 7mate for selected coverage outside of Victoria.

General manager for Seven Melbourne, Lewis Martin paid tribute to Ten’s commitment to broadcasting AFL:

“We are excited about the prospect of carrying all the AFL games for which we bid.  But we wish to acknowledge that Channel Ten has been a terrific AFL broadcast partner for the past five years, and their commitment to the game over the past decade. We understand and empathise with how difficult these decisions can be.”

Foxtel will broadcast all nine weekly games, including re-broadcasting Seven’s coverage, and finals excluding the Grand Final.

Source: The Age, Herald Sun

More changes at the top at Ten

There continues to be upheaval in the executive ranks at the Ten Network, with the network’s news director Jim Carroll (pictured) to step down from his position.

With a background in print, radio and television journalism, including foreign postings, Carroll joined Ten in 2000 before being appointed head of news and current affairs in 2005.  It is reported that he will be considering new opportunities within Ten.

He will be replaced by the network’s Melbourne news director Dermot O’Brien – a former Seven Network journalist and producer of the Hinch program at the Seven and Ten networks before taking over as news director at Ten in Melbourne in the mid ‘90s.

Carroll’s news portfolio faced a big-budget revamp earlier this year with the network expanding its news line-up to include 6PM With George Negus and a separate news bulletin at 6.30pm to complement the long-running 5.00pm news hour.

Following a lack lustre ratings result the line-up was revised two months later to see the Negus program moved and re-named to 6.30pm and the 5.00pm bulletin extended to 90 minutes.  The revision has seen a modest improvement in ratings but Ten’s 6.00pm hour still trails well behind rivals Seven and Nine.

The news expansion, and the cost associated with it, has been the subject of much scrutiny since the arrival of James Packer and Lachlan Murdoch to the network’s board, and some public criticism from board member Bruce Gordon, owner of regional network WIN – a Nine affiliate.

The reshuffle at the board has since seen Ten group CEO Nick Falloon resign, followed by the departure of his replacement Grant Blackley who was previously CEO of the Ten business.  It was under their management that the strategy behind the news revamp was developed.

Murdoch was since appointed interim CEO of the Ten group, with former Seven sales executive James Warburton (pictured) appointed to formally take over the role from January.

In recent months Ten has also lost sports director David White, chief financial officer John Kelly and chief digital officer Nick Spooner.

Under interim CEO Murdoch, Ten has also revised its multi-channel strategy by cutting back some of the sports content from high-definition channel One and implementing more special interest and general entertainment programming in prime-time.  The network had also withdrawn from a joint bid with the Seven Network for the rights to broadcast AFL from 2012 to 2016, although the option may still exist for Seven to on-sell some of its commitment to Ten.

Source: Ten, The Australian, The Australian

TelevisionAU Update 29-May-2011

http://www.televisionau.com

FLASHBACK #58:
Although swimming champion Ian Thorpe (pictured) was still winning medals and breaking records in 2002, he took a brief diversion into television as the host of the Seven Network's Undercover Angels, a short-lived series that saw Thorpe's 'angels' - actress Simone Kessell, Katie Underwood (from the pop group Bardot manufactured by Seven's Popstars in 2000) and radio co-host Jackie O - performing good deeds for people in need.  The feel-good series was a good ratings performer for Seven but was never extended beyond the first series.  Picture: The Sunday Mail TV Scene, 12 May 2002

CLASSIC TV GUIDES:
Melbourne:
24 November 1975 (Premiere: Eyewitness Newshour)
30 October 1986 (Premiere: The Movie Show)
18 January 1988 (Premiere: Seven Nightly News, Hinch At Seven, Home And Away, A Current Affair)

Victoria:
30 April 1963 (Official Opening ABEV1, Bendigo)

New South Wales:
25 February 1980

Adelaide:
26 July 1965 (Official Opening SAS10)
22 April 1983 (TV Week Logie Awards)

Western Australia:
22 April 1983 (TV Week Logie Awards)
20 May 1988 (Official Opening NEW10)

Darwin:
1 January 1988 (Australia Live)

GREAT OZ TV FLOPS
Ben Elton: Live From Planet Earth (Nine, 2011)

TELEVISIONAU - THE HISTORY OF AUSTRALIAN TELEVISION
http://www.televisionau.com
http://blog.televisionau.com
http://www.twitter.com/TelevisionAU
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/televisionau
http://au.youtube.com/user/TelevisionAU

Boxer was a TV record breaker

Australian boxing legend Lionel Rose MBE died yesterday at his Warragul home at the age of 62.

A champion boxer from the age of 15, Rose was the first Aboriginal to win a world title when he won the world bantamweight title in Tokyo in 1968.  He was also the first Aboriginal to be named Australian Of The Year.  He was widely admired by the sporting community and the general public in the decades that followed.

He was also a key figure in one of Australian television’s significant events of the late 1960s.

Melbourne’s third commercial channel, ATV0, had struggled to gain a significant hold of the market since its debut in 1964.  The major stumbling block was that older TV sets and antennas were not compatible with the Channel 0 frequency.  Even if households had converted their older TV sets to accommodate the 0 frequency, as many did prior to the launch of ATV0, their antennas might also have needed modification or replacement.

In a bid to address this issue of reception, station owner Reg Ansett, noting the popularity of boxing with Australians and the intense public interest in Rose, planned to stage a world title fight, to be held in Melbourne and telecast live on ATV0, between Rose and British champion Alan Rudkin.

The event was said to have cost Ansett around $140,000 (in 1969 dollars) – including $70,000 to sign up Rose – but the channel was confident that it would deliver a result.  “I’d be surprised if we didn’t have at least 50 per cent of the viewers… and probably up to 70 per cent,” station manager Max Ryan told The Age on the eve of the event.

The fight took place at Melbourne’s Kooyong tennis stadium on the night of Saturday, 8 March 1969.  The event attracted widespread media coverage, with four Melbourne radio stations also covering the fight, and national broadcaster ABC presenting a preview of the event the night before.  The BBC were also to provide live radio coverage of the fight, with a videotape recording of the bout to be sent back to the UK for local transmission. 

Nationwide interest in the fight saw even a rugby game in Sydney moved from Saturday to Friday night to avoid a clash.

ATV0’s coverage started with the weigh-in at 11.00am on the Saturday.  Then at 8.00pm all eyes were on Kooyong.  ATV0’s evening coverage, headed by sports director Phil Gibbs (pictured, below, with Rose) with commentators Jim Shepherd and Rocky Gattellari, was being beamed direct for live transmission across the 0-10 Network and to regional stations across Australia.  It was also being broadcast via ABC in some remote and regional areas.

The channel had six cameras set up at Kooyong to cover the fight, as well as a roving camera powered by a “back pack”. 

The night’s program started with lightweight and middleweight bouts.  And then, the big one – a 15-round world bantamweight championship bout between Rose and Rudkin.

Rose won.

The telecast was due to close at 11.00pm, including post-fight interviews with the opponents and the trophy presentation by Victorian Premier Sir Henry Bolte, with ATV0 scheduling a repeat the following afternoon.

The gamble taken by Ansett reaped a massive result.  The telecast made Australian television history by scoring a rating of 72, that is 72 per cent of all households.  At a time when anything above a rating of 30 was considered successful in a four-station market, it was a massive result and significant for a channel that up until then had struggled to get a decent audience.  It would appear that the channel’s reception dilemma was over, though it would still be a couple more years before the channel scored any consistent ratings success.

The ratings record set by the Rose-Rudkin fight would stand for another three decades before being broken by the Seven Network’s telecast of the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000.

The life of Lionel Rose was also enacted in a television mini-series, Rose Against The Odds, which aired on the Seven Network in the early 1990s.

Source: The Age, 6 March 1969.  The Age, 7 March 1969.  TV Times, 5 March 1969.  From The Word Go! – 40 Years of Channel Ten Melbourne, Network Ten Pty Ltd, 2003.  Herald Sun.

Royal Weddings: 1981 and today

Tonight (Australian time), an estimated two billion viewers worldwide will be watching the long-awaited wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton at London’s Westminster Abbey.

The wedding marks the culmination of a media circus that has seen the world’s major broadcasters all converge on London to breathlessly bring viewers in their respective countries every known detail of the wedding – and where there are no facts to report, there has been lots and lots of speculation. 

In Australia there will be live prime-time coverage of the wedding via ABC1, ABC News 24, Seven, Nine and Ten – while 7TWO and GEM will also be utilised to work around sporting commitments for Seven and Nine. 

ABC2’s proposed alternative coverage featuring commentary from the Chaser boys has been controversially axed at the last minute following orders received from the royal family that no coverage shall be used for a satirical nature.

Despite the ruling affecting the Chaser, Network Ten is expected to continue its light-hearted wedding coverage, to be fronted by Nova FM presenters Ryan ‘Fitzy’ Fitzgerald and Michael ‘Wippa’ Wipfli, bookended by a special edition of The 7PM Project and a late-night edition of The Circle.  The Nine Network’s planned coverage is also set to include an appearance by Dame Edna Everage. 

Pay TV is also getting in on the event with BBC World News, UKTV, E!, Fox News, CNN and Sky News all providing various levels of coverage.

SBS has decided not to partake in all this wedding excitement and its main channel SBS1 will broadcast its normal Friday night fare, including its late-night ‘adults only’ series How To Get More Sex.

The Australian media’s hysteria surrounding the wedding of William and Kate is not entirely unlike that of the wedding of William’s parents, Prince Charles and Princess Diana, at London’s St Paul’s Cathedral in July 1981.

Like today’s ceremony, the 1981 royal wedding was an Australian TV network programmer’s dream with the ceremony landing straight into Australian prime-time schedules. 

The ABC, Seven, Nine and Ten networks all provided saturation coverage of the wedding with their own correspondents and celebrities despatched to London to provide daily reports in the lead-up to the event and to present commentary on the day’s activities.  Coincidentally, Ten’s celebrity royal wedding correspondent in 1981, Ita Buttrose, is performing a similar role for the Nine Network in 2011.

For Sydney and Melbourne viewers, the only viewing alternative on the night of Wednesday, 29 July 1981, was the then relatively new Channel 0/28, whose lineup of foreign-language movies (Persche Si Uccide Magistrate from Italy, and Buynu Bükük from Turkey) were probably not the most useful viewing alternatives in an era where there were few other viewing options available – no pay-TV, few households had VCRs and there was no such thing as the internet.

Ratings for the night showed that viewers easily preferred the Nine Network’s coverage, with Melbourne’s GTV9 scoring a rating of 34 points in the prime time of 8-8.30pm, followed by ABV2 (20 per cent), HSV7 (15 per cent), ATV10 (10 per cent) and 0/28 coming last with zero per cent.  An hour-and-a-half later, GTV9 was still in front on 31 per cent, followed by ABV2 (17 per cent), ATV10 (15 per cent), HSV7 (13 per cent) and 0/28 (one per cent).

In Sydney, TCN9’s prime-time coverage peaked at a score of 41 per cent, followed by ABN2 (16 per cent), TEN10 (14 per cent), ATN7 (11 per cent) and 0/28 (one per cent).

A handful of commercial channels declined to cover the Charles and Diana wedding – including Adelaide’s ADS7 who instead decided to show a John Wayne movie (The Sons Of Katie Elder) with a delayed telecast of the wedding ceremony the following day.  However, ADS7’s decision to provide an alternative was not well rewarded as the channel fared last in the evening’s ratings and scoring only a third of the viewers of its nearest competitor, ABS2.

Source: The Age, 7 August 1981.  The Age, 11 August 1981. Sydney Morning Herald, 6 August 1981.  TV Week, 25 July 1981.

UPDATE @ 15.00 AEST 30.4.2011:  The Seven Network has won the ratings for the night of Friday 29 April:  Seven (29.8%), Nine (22.7%), ABC1 (18.3%), 7TWO (8.0%), Ten (7.5%), SBS1 (2.7%), GO! (2.4%), 7mate (1.9%), GEM (1.7%*), ABC2 (1.6%), Eleven (1.6%), One (0.5%), SBS2 (0.5%), ABC3 (0.4%), ABC News 24 (0.4%*).

* Excludes simulcasts with standard definition channels.

Ten reworks ‘unsustainable’ One HD

Two years ago the Ten Network took on a brave gamble when it launched Australia’s first full-scale digital commercial channel, the sports-themed One HD.  It was a niche channel that while it rated well against the pay-TV sports channels, it had to also take on the broadly-themed commercial networks, a situation made even more difficult when Seven and Nine started rolling out general entertainment channels such as 7TWO, 7mate, GO! and GEM to enhance their broadcast offerings.

While Ten, under its previous management, insisted that One HD was embracing a program genre that would be immune to the pressures of internet downloads and that it was paying a dividend to the network, the unfortunate reality is that the channel was not a match for the many other free-to-air channels in the ratings.  Last week One HD was the lowest ranked of all the commercial channels across the five capital cities – scoring 1.2% market share following Seven (23.7%), Nine (19.3%), Ten (15.5%), 7TWO (4.6%), GO! (4.1%), Eleven (3.6%), 7mate (3.5%) and GEM (2.9%).  (Of the national broadcasters, ABC1 (13.7%), SBS1 (4.5%), ABC2 (2.1%), SBS2 (0.7%), ABC News 24 (0.7%) and ABC3 (0.5%).)

On many nights One HD failed to rate higher than a whole percentage point. 

The performance of One HD and Ten’s high-cost news and current affairs expansion has come under scrutiny from the network’s new management following the departure of CEO Grant Blackley.  And in half year financial results announced today, Ten Network Holdings reported a profit of $49.3 million, a 16 per cent drop when compared to the same half year period last year.

Ten has already moved to attempt to save its news line-up from ratings collapse – with 6PM With George Negus (pictured) moving to the 6.30pm timeslot and the expansion of the 5.00pm news bulletin to 90 minutes, and re-instating the weekend 5.00pm bulletin.  The changes made have seen some short-term ratings gains, though with daylight saving ending this week it is hard to tell if that increase wouldn’t have happened anyway.

Following a recent period of experimentation in playing general entertainment programming in prime-time on One HD, today it has been announced that Ten will be revamping the channel from Sunday 8 May with a move towards general entertainment, movies and non-sport special interest programs on weeknights to supplement its existing sports programming on weekends.  The new-look One HD has a ratings target of 2.5 per cent of the market, targeting 25-54 year old males.  (Ten has a target audience of 18-49 year-old viewers, while Eleven is aimed at the 13-29 age group.)

In announcing the channel’s revamp, Ten’s interim CEO Lachlan Murdoch said the channel was at a ‘dead end’:

“One was underperforming from a ratings point of view; rating below a single share point was simply unsustainable and unable to contribute to our earnings.  We were at a dead end with One as it stood.”

While Mr Murdoch is interim CEO and an owner of nine per cent of the Ten Network business, he is also a director of the giant News Corporation which has significant interests in pay-TV operator Foxtel and in its Fox Sports channels.

Some of the programs to appear on the new-look One HD include Extreme Fishing, Ice Road Truckers, Everest Beyond The Limit, An Idiot Abroad, COPS, Sons Of Anarchy, Breakout King, Terriers and Lights Out.  The channel will also feature a movie line-up of titles such as Pitch Black, Doom, Jarhead, The Last King Of Scotland, 28 Weeks Later and Babylon AD.

In other programming changes, the network has also announced a new addition to Ten’s schedule with the upcoming launch of The Bolt Report, a Sunday morning news commentary program headed by newspaper columnist Andrew Bolt.  The new program is set to debut on 8 May in the 10.00am Sunday timeslot, with Ten’s long-running Meet The Press moving to 10.30am.

Source: The Age, Ten, Herald Sun

Ten moves George Negus to 6.30

Two months to the day since launching its radical news overhaul, Network Ten has today made some significant changes in response to poor ratings figures.

The network knew from the January launch that the ratings would be a struggle but had perhaps not quite expected them to settle where they have.  In last night’s ratings, 6PM With George Negus was watched by 335,000 viewers across the five major capitals, compared to Nine News (974,000) and Seven News (1,190,000).  The Evening News was watched by 337,000 compared to A Current Affair (921,000) and Today Tonight (1,144,000). 

From Monday 4 April, 6PM With George Negus moves to the 6.30pm timeslot (and re-titled accordingly) as the 6.30 news half-hour essentially moves to 6.00pm as an extension of the existing 5.00pm news hour.

The change will now see the serious George Negus (pictured) program placed directly up against tabloids Today Tonight and A Current Affair – two programs whose ongoing rivalry hit new lows this week as each program accused the other of pinching footage, a public battle that could well end up in the courts after ACA played an interview conducted by TT without any attribution or commentary.

The changes to Ten’s 6.00pm hour will not result in any job losses as the newsreading roster will be adjusted accordingly – in particular, Melbourne’s 6.30 newsreader Mal Walden goes back to the 5.00pm bulletin while Sydney’s Sandra Sully (pictured) moves back to the national late night bulletin.

Ten’s programming chief David Mott said in a media release that the change is due to audience response to the news line-up:

“We are making this alteration in the early evening news schedule based on feedback from viewers who value competitive, intelligent and incisive news and public affairs programs.  We are strong supporters of quality news, comment and analysis and believe that Network Ten should remain a leading player in this space.”

Earlier this month Ten was forced to reinstate its 5.00pm national news bulletin on weekends after it suddenly moved the bulletin to 6.00pm, leading to rival Nine starting up its own 5.00pm weekend bulletin to fill the gap.

The changes may be seen as a premature panic move – inspiring changes to news viewing habits requires a lot of time and Ten had previously promised its commitment to this line-up “for the long haul” – but the audience appears to have spoken and Ten have taken that on board.  Now it will be up to those viewers to justify the changes that have been made.

Source: Ten Network

Big news day for Ten

There has been a lot happening at the Ten Network in the last 24 hours.

Ten Network Holdings has appointed a new CEO less than a week after Grant Blackley was removed from the role.

James Warburton (pictured), a sales executive with the Seven Network, will take on the role of CEO for Ten effective 14 July.  In the meantime the role will continue to be held by acting chief Lachlan Murdoch.

Also today, the Ten Network issued a brief statement that James Packer was resigning from the board effective immediately.  Packer made a bold investment in Ten last year – estimated to be around $288 million worth which he then split with Murdoch – and had been on the board at the company since November.  His arrival at Ten led to the resignation of group CEO Nick Falloon.

No reason was given for Packer’s sudden resignation from the board and at this stage he is expected to be retaining his share of the company.  There has been speculation that his departure may be linked to the selection of Warburton to the CEO position.

Ten also announced today that its group chief financial officer John Kelly will be leaving the company later this month, to be replaced by Paul Anderson who is the current finance chief of the Ten business.

While all of this activity is taking place, management is also currently undertaking a review of the network’s strategic direction, with close attention to the expanded news portfolio, including 6PM With George Negus and the 6.30 Evening News, but may also impact on the network’s multi-channel strategy that has seen the launch of digital channels One HD and Eleven.

Network Ten has also announced it’s first ‘back flip’ since its news re-launch.  The network will be reinstating its weekend 5.00pm Ten News bulletin with Natarsha Belling (pictured).  In launching its revamped news format in January, Ten had bumped the 5.00pm national weekend news to a 6.00pm bulletin based in each of the five major capitals.  The move was given little advance promotion and as a result the new 6.00pm Evening News bulletin has failed to grab even a modest market share up against Seven and Nine – while the Nine Network swiftly moved to fill the gap for weekend news in the 5.00pm timeslot with a new bulletin, even boldly using the tagline “First At Five” which has long been a Ten staple.

Programming chief David Mott said in a statement today:

“We have long held a prominent news position at 5pm in the weekend schedule and we are not willing to give up that ground any longer.”

“Clearly there is a viewer thirst for choice when it comes to weekend news and we are well placed to provide them what they want with our 5pm and 6pm news coverage.”

“Effective this weekend, we will return with a national 5pm news bulletin, covering news, sport and weather from Australia and around the world, complemented by our recently launched, targeted local news bulletin in each market at 6pm.”

It would seem that the changes announced today will be far from being the last for the Ten Network.

Source: The Age, Ten, Herald Sun.

Ten axes CEO Grant Blackley

The board of Ten Network Holdings has today terminated the services of CEO Grant Blackley (pictured) only two months after he was promoted to the role as a sign of executive stability.

Lachlan Murdoch, who bought into the company last year, now takes over as acting CEO while the board finds a permanent replacement.

Ten Network Holdings includes the Ten television network (including digital channels One HD and Eleven) and advertising company Eye Corp.

Mr Blackley, who had been CEO of the Network Ten business since 2005, had taken on the role of group CEO in December from Nick Falloon, whose departure followed the arrival of James Packer as a significant shareholder.

While in charge of Ten, Mr Blackley headed the network’s multi-channel and revamped news strategies.  In 2009 Ten launched its dedicated sports channel One HD, and last year Mr Blackley announced the launch of youth-focused entertainment channel Eleven and a significant investment in expanding Ten’s news portfolio, in particular the launch of a national current affairs program at 6.00pm and state-based news bulletins at 6.30pm.  The news strategy also led to the reinstatement of state-based weekend news bulletins across the five major capital cities.

The expansion of news programming and personnel, which required an investment of around $20 million, has reportedly come under criticism from within the Ten board which in the last few months has added Packer, Murdoch and mining magnate Gina Rinehart, who have all invested in the network in recent months – although only one shareholder, WIN Corporation owner Bruce Gordon, who owns 14 per cent of Ten, had publicly questioned the strategy. 

The removal of Mr Blackley from the company is seen to put a dark cloud over the news expansion in particular but may also impact on the current multi-channel strategy.  While the news revamp was never expected to pay short terms dividends, in the month since it launched the new lineup, including 6PM With George Negus and the 6.30 Evening News, has failed to grab a decent audience.  The shifting of the weekend news bulletins from 5.00pm to 6.00pm has also delivered dire results, highlighted even more by rival Nine Network’s cheeky move to install a weekend 5.00pm bulletin to fill the gap left by Ten News vacating the timeslot.

Lachlan Murdoch’s father Rupert Murdoch is a former owner of the Ten Network, having taken the ailing network through a period of ratings strength in the 1980s. 

Source: ABC, The Australian, The Age, TV Tonight, Ten Network

Ten takes on the News giants

For many years Network Ten’s news offering has been dismissed as a poorer cousin to the brash, high-profile Seven and Nine news portfolios.  While Seven and Nine throw money into resources and promotion, each of them keen to get an edge over the other while almost mimicking each other, Ten has kept a somewhat more modest profile – largely due to staying out of the traditional 6-7pm news hour, keeping a lower profile in the competitive breakfast timeslot, and reducing its weekend news output largely to ‘national’ Sydney-based bulletins.  And, when a major news story would be breaking or there is an election to cover, chances are it would be Seven, Nine or ABC that would pull all stops to cover it live, while Ten maintained its long-held mantra of providing an alternative option for viewers.

There have been exceptions to the rule, of course.  It was Ten News that first broke the news to Australians of the September 11 attacks in the US and, like its rivals, maintained a level of continuous news coverage in the days that followed.  The network maintained its serious Sunday morning Meet The Press interview program despite it sitting awkwardly amongst children’s programs and Video Hits, and while Nine replaced the serious Sunday with the more casual Weekend Today and Seven expanded its chummy Sunrise to the timeslot.  Ten has also maintained its 10.30pm Late News while both Seven and Nine abandoned their late night news programs.  And while the 5.00pm bulletin was avoiding the prime-time battle, it gradually built up its audience to the point where it dominated that hour, despite the high-profile late-afternoon game show battles between Seven and Nine, and both networks launching their own 4.30pm national news bulletins.

But, as time progressed, it became apparent that Ten was perhaps tiring of having the lesser of the three commercial networks’ news profiles and the impact of not having a News presence at 6.00pm.  The network was seeing its viewing numbers drop dramatically at 6.00pm after Ten News has signed off, while Seven and Nine’s 6.00pm bulletins continued to sit at the top of the nightly ratings reports, with The Simpsons and Neighbours – while they might have represented a sound viewing alternative in the 6.00pm hour many years ago – clearly no longer attracting the numbers they once did.  There were reports in 2009 that Ten was considering the idea of expanding the 5.00pm bulletin to 90 minutes – thirty years after it led the way as a network with the one-hour newscast as opposed to the traditional half-hour format.

Then, last year, Ten announced its bold move.  The network was bumping The Simpsons and Neighbours from their long-held timeslots to its new digital channel, Eleven.  This one-hour gap in the schedule was now going to be filled by two additional news programs – one national and one local – to sit between Ten News and The 7PM Project.  Ten also announced plans to reinstate state-based weekend news bulletins at 6.00pm.  It marks the first major shake-up of commercial television news coverage since Ten moved its evening bulletin to 5.00pm almost twenty years ago.

In implementing this expanded news profile, Ten – a network not often known for lavish spending – was investing big money, reported to be $20 million, in infrastructure and hiring new staff, most notably the signing up of veteran journalist and presenter George Negus.  With a journalistic background dating back to This Day Tonight and the founding days of 60 Minutes and Foreign Correspondent, and more recently as host of SBS’ Dateline, Negus presents a credible identity.  His more recent appearances as a weekly commentator on The 7PM Project have also endeared him to the network and its viewers.  Ten’s new venture also gained credibility with the signing of former ABC journalist Chris Masters as a consultant to the network.

With the expenditure and high-profile signings, it was clear that this news revamp was going to be far more than just splashing a coat of paint on the news desk or changing the logo on the network’s car fleet – this was going to be a serious shake-up of the evening news and giving viewers a decent alternative to the lookalike news and current affairs programs of Seven and Nine.  For the first time in over twenty years, Ten was now gearing up to take on its two commercial rivals – who have cosily had the 6.00pm hour all to themselves for too long – in a big way. 

So, after months of waiting and speculation – some of the latter prompted by James Packer’s surprise investment in the Ten Network with media discussing his rumoured plans to tear down the news revamp – Ten’s ‘news evolution’ finally comes to fruition tomorrow (Monday) evening. 

Essentially, the ‘First at Five’ Ten News remains intact but there are some changes in personnel and production.  The Adelaide newscast now moves back to being produced entirely from Adelaide – after being largely based at Ten’s Melbourne studio for several years – and follows the return of the Perth newscast to the Perth-based studios in 2008.

The Adelaide 5.00pm bulletin is now being fronted by Belinda Heggen, replacing George Donikian and Rebecca Morse, while the Perth bulletin is now read by former ABC journalist Craig Smart, replacing Narelda Jacobs.  Donikian now replaces Mal Walden at the Melbourne 5.00pm newsdesk, sitting alongside Helen Kapalos.  The significance of the Greek heritage of both Donikian and Kapalos (pictured) in presenting the news together in the largest Greek city outside of Greece has not gone unnoticed. ”It's not just revolutionary, this is the first in the world,” Donikian told Melbourne-based Greek newspaper Neos Kosmos.

Walden, Morse and Jacobs now move to presenting the new 6.30pm Evening News in their respective capital cities – providing a local news-based alternative to the tabloid offerings from Seven and Nine in that timeslot.

Former Late News presenter Sandra Sully (pictured) will be reading the Sydney-based Evening News bulletin, and Brisbane newsreader Bill McDonald will be presenting Brisbane’s Evening News as well as co-anchoring the local 5.00pm bulletin with Georgie Lewis.

Bill Woods and Deborah Knight will continue to present the 5.00pm Ten News in Sydney.

The 6.00pm timeslot now becomes home to 6PM With George Negus – a national program offering an in-depth analysis of the news.  As well as being hosted by the experienced and popular Negus, 6PM also boasts a strong line-up of journalists including Hugh Riminton, formerly of the Nine Network and CNN, and Hamish Macdonald, an Australian journalist formerly working in the United Kingdom and also a former correspondent for the Al Jazeera English channel.

With Ten’s new intentions, and the recent arrival of ABC News 24 as Australia’s first free-to-air dedicated news channel, if Seven and Nine are panicking at the prospect of the intense competition they are not showing any signs of it.  It appears to be ‘business as usual’ for the two top-rating networks, with little changing in their portfolio of news and current affairs programs.

According to Seven’s Melbourne newsreader Peter Mitchell: “Nothing changes for us," he told the Herald Sun.  "We know what we've got to do. We've always prided ourselves on being local." – a swipe at 6PM’s national focus.

Nine’s Brisbane news director Lee Anderson, talking to the Courier Mail, questions Ten’s ability to cover the big local stories on the back of its stilted response to coverage of the Queensland flood crisis: "When Brisbane faced its biggest natural disaster Ten obviously found it difficult to cover the emergency effectively, so I hope for them this will mean their network bosses start to take local operation seriously."

Seven’s Brisbane news director Rob Raschke was a little more flippant in his comments, labelling Negus as ‘a worthy successor to Homer Simpson’. 

“And, like Homer, his focus won't be on Queensland,” Raschke told the Courier Mail.

It appears that Ten’s rivals are quick to criticise the national focus of 6PM while failing to acknowledge Ten’s local approach at 5.00pm and 6.30pm against their own national programs.

But Ten and Negus (pictured with Melbourne newsreader Walden) have no illusions that the new line-up will be an instant hit with viewers.  News viewing habits are well-entrenched and rarely turnaround to a new competitor in an instant.  But the network has shown with The 7PM Project that it has the ability to be patient and to persevere with a new venture even if it doesn’t pay immediate dividends.

Ten News, 6PM With George Negus, Evening News, The 7PM Project.  Weeknights, from 5.00pm, starting 24 January.  Network Ten, Southern Cross Ten, Tasmanian Digital Television, Darwin Digital Television, Ten Mildura, Ten West.

Source: Herald Sun, Courier Mail, The Age, Neos Kosmos.