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.

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

Sandra Sully signs off from Late News

It was the end of an era last night as Network Ten newsreader Sandra Sully signed off from the Late News for the last time.

The former Canberra correspondent, who’d also had a stint as co-host of Good Morning Australia and the Sydney edition of the 5pm Ten News, took on the role of presenting the network’s 10.30pm bulletin in 1995 – following the departure of newsreader Anne Fulwood to the Seven Network.  With Sully at the helm, the late night edition of Ten News fought off opposition from both the Seven and Nine networks, to the point that neither network now has a significant news coverage at that time of night.

Like with many newsreaders the job often put her in the position of covering some very significant news events.  In 1997 she was on location at Thredbo when the sole survivor of a massive landslide, that claimed the lives of 18 others, was pulled from the wreckage after being trapped for three days.

Then, on the night of September 11, 2001, during the Late News, she was the first in Australia to break the news of a passenger plane flying into one of the World Trade Center towers in New York, and would continue to present news into the night as the tragic events unfolded.

In 2005 she had an exclusive interview with former Iraq hostage Douglas Wood.

As well as covering major news events, Sully has a lighter side – as host of the former quiz show Australia’s Brainiest, as co-host and interviewer on Network Ten’s annual Melbourne Cup coverage, hosting the annual Australian Of The Year presentation and not to forget her often lighthearted handover to Sports Tonight presenter Brad McEwen on the Late News.

Sandra Sully leaves the late-night timeslot to focus on her new role, anchoring the Sydney edition of Ten’s new 6.30pm bulletin which is due to launch early in 2011.

Ten has yet to announce who will formally take over the role of newsreader for the Late News bulletin.

YouTube: Ten

One year of ONE

Yesterday marked the first anniversary of the launch of Australia’s first free-to-air sports channel, One HD.

The channel, an off-shoot of the Ten Network, marked the first genuine commercial multi-channel with a full 24/7 schedule and unique branding that offered clear differentiation from the primary channel.

In its first year, One has secured rights to a number of sporting events, either exclusively or in partnership with Ten, as a challenge to sports channels on the pay-TV platform and to help stem the flow of viewers to pay-TV.  Sports such as Australian swimming, Twenty20 Champions League and Indian Premier League cricket, Australian Open and Australian PGA golf, Formula 1 racing, NFL, NBA, Netball, UFC, NASCAR, American baseball and MotoGP have been given a greater range of coverage on free-to-air than ever before via One.

Ten’s rights to the Australian Football League have also led to extensive coverage on One – including live coverage, replays and exclusive programming such as One Week At A Time.

Extended versions of Ten’s long-running Sports Tonight and a weekly program, Thursday Night Live (pictured), have given a greater coverage of sports news and discussion.

The channel will also boast coverage of the Commonwealth Games later this year in partnership with Ten. 

And it was reported yesterday that both Ten and One have snared the rights to the National Basketball League in a five-year deal from 2010/2011, taking the rights away from Fox Sports and returning the league to Ten, which previously had the broadcast rights back in the ‘90s.

The Ten/One combination is also reported to be planning a push into other major sports, with an NRL bid set to be on the agenda, and will be hopeful to maintain Ten’s decade-long association with AFL with the next rights deal soon up for grabs.

But while Ten will no doubt applaud One HD’s first year as a success, and hopefully profitable, there is the question as to how effective the channel has been in the bigger picture.  Even though One manages to out-rate its pay-TV sports channel rivals, such as Fox Sports 1, Fox Sports 2, Fox Sports 3, Fox Sports News, ESPN and Sky Racing, it has struggled to match ratings with free-to-air multichannel rivals 7TWO and GO!, both of which are building up small but significant audience numbers.  So Ten might be grabbing some extra sports viewers with One but may be losing viewers to entertainment channels 7TWO and GO! – though Ten maintains some strength in its younger demographic audience and claims that One is reaching a market lucrative to advertisers.  Ten also does not have the advantage that Seven and Nine have in that they are able to offload less-popular or alternative programming to their digital multi-channels – though Ten has capacity to set up a second standard-definition channel (currently being used as a standard-definition simulcast of One) and could well do so for this purpose in the future.

The launch of One as a high-definition channel has also left every non-sports program on Ten without an outlet for high-definition broadcasting, while Seven, Nine, ABC and SBS continue to provide high-definition simulcasts of their primary channel.  This has always been a puzzling move, though Ten has maintained that sport is the genre most in demand for high-definition and has seen fit to use that spectrum for One.

With One currently broadcasting alongside the Ten Network and regional affiliate Southern Cross Ten, further expansion is due next month with the channel commencing transmission in Darwin on 22 April as the sister station to Darwin Digital Television.

Source: The Australian, NT News, ABC, Daily Telegraph