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.
Ten Newsnight, with Macdonald and sports presenter Brad McEwan, will screen Monday to Thursday nights at 10.30pm from Monday, 4 June.
The Ten Network’s new Breakfast show debuts today (Thursday) following news last night of the resignation of Kevin Rudd from the position of Foreign Minister.
And in an interview published in this week’s TV Week, Sunrise producer Michael Pell is not overly concerned about his show’s new competitor. “We just concentrate on what we do and what we’ve got coming up. We don’t look over our shoulder,” he said. And in comparison to the successful chemistry between Sunrise presenters Melissa Doyle, David Koch, Natalie Barr, Mark Beretta and Grant Denyer, Pell says Ten’s combination is an unknown quantity. “The presenters on Ten’s new show… we haven’t seen them work together. So it’s anyone’s guess how it will turn out – chemistry is the key.”
Network Ten’s new breakfast news program, creatively titled Breakfast, is set to debut on Monday, 27 February at 6.00am.
It doesn’t seem that long since we 
Ratings-wise, it was all about 
Network Ten launched its new digital channel 
Nine’s A Current Affair revisited some TV classics during the year, including 
Karl Stefanovic (pictured) won the 
Network Ten will hope for a better, more stable year with a new CEO and 
Nine had something of a late-year resurgence this year with The Block winning ratings in its new 7.00pm timeslot and Celebrity Apprentice also bringing in strong figures. The success of these will see Nine delve further into the reality genre in 2012 with another series of The Block, the return of Big Brother and an Australian version of singing contest The Voice.
In sport, Seven becomes the sole free-to-air broadcaster of 
The ground-breaking drama of the 1970s, Number 96 (pictured) will have its 40th anniversary commemorated with another DVD release of episodes – this time revisiting some of the few black-and-white episodes to still be in existence, as well the episodes surrounding the bomb-blast storyline of 1975.
The Ten Network has pulled the pin on its current affairs flagship 6.30 With George Negus.
The Ten Network has announced the appointment of Anthony Flannery to head its News and Current Affairs division, effective in the new year.
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 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.
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.
Then, last year, Ten 
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 
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 
Former Late News presenter 
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.
It is not often that this blog specifically highlights programs from overseas but there is one show that reaches a certain milestone on Australian television this week that it would be remiss not to acknowledge it.
The program made its Australian debut on ABC on Monday, 4 January 1971 at 8.00am – with a repeat at 4.30pm. By the time the show had debuted in Australia Sesame Street was already showing in 50 other countries. For the next 15 years, ABC’s broadcast day was started each weekday by Sesame Street.
The popularity of Sesame Street led to the 7-foot-tall Big Bird visiting Australia in 1980 for the TV Week Logie Awards (pictured, with host Bert Newton), and in more recent years the character of Elmo has made numerous appearances on programs including Rove, The 7PM Project and The Circle, either in the studio or via satellite. As well as Big Bird and Elmo, Sesame Street has featured a long list of one-off and recurring Muppet characters – with such characters as flatmates Bert and Ernie, Kermit the Frog, Oscar the Grouch, the Cookie Monster, Grover and The Count among some of the show’s most familiar and long-serving characters.
The Sesame Street concept has being franchised widely around the world, with versions produced in Brazil (Vila S̩samo), Egypt (Alam Simsim), India (Galli Galli Sim Sim), South Africa (Takalani Sesame), Northern Ireland (Sesame Tree) and Germany (Sesamstrasse) amongst many others, and an Australian version РOpen Sesame Рwas produced by pay-TV channel Nick Jr and introduced the first ever Australian Muppet, Ollie (pictured).
It’s a new era for the TV Week Logie Awards as TV Week has today opened the voting for the 2011 awards presentation.
Most Popular Actress: Janet Andrewartha (pictured. Neighbours) – who was also missing from 
Most Popular Actor: Lliam Amor (Hawke), Stephen Ballantyne (The Librarians), Morgan Baker (Neighbours), Keith Brockett (The Librarians), Vince Colosimo (pictured. Wicked Love), Richard Davies (Offspring), Firass Dirani (Underbelly 3: The Golden Mile), Bob Franklin (The Librarians), Kim Gyngell (The Librarians), Kevin Hofbauer (Rush), Lachy Hulme (Offspring, The Librarians), Josh Lawson (Hawke), Geoff Morrell (Rake), Erin Mullally (Neighbours), Eddie Perfect (Offspring), Jordan Smith (Neighbours), Matthew Werkmeister (Neighbours), Sandy Winton (Neighbours), Felix Williamson (Hawke). 
Most Popular Presenter: Paul Barry (Media Watch), Peter Evans (My Kitchen Rules), Peter Everett (Ready Steady Cook), Manu Feildel (My Kitchen Rules), Julie Goodwin (Home Cooked), Andrew Hansen (Strictly Speaking). Peter Helliar (The Bounce), Jonathan Holmes (Media Watch), Amanda Keller (Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation), James O’Loghlin (The New Inventors), Sandra Sully (pictured. Ten News), Peter Thompson (Talking Heads), Josh Thomas (Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation), Bill Woods (Thursday Night Live).
Online voting for the popularity-based categories closes 20 February 2011 and the 53rd annual TV Week Logie Awards will take place on 1 May 2011.
The Seven Network has won the ratings battle for the fourth consecutive year – but all three commercial networks will have something to smile about.
Topping Seven’s ratings list is Packed To The Rafters (pictured), Australia’s Got Talent, the AFL Grand Final (and the re-match), Such Is Life: The Troubled Times Of Ben Cousins, the Melbourne Cup and the men’s final of the Australian Open.
My Kitchen Rules (pictured) returned strong ratings but failed to dampen any enthusiasm for the return of Ten’s Masterchef Australia. The X Factor, despite all the hype, promotion and expense, failed to hit any significant ratings highs but returned decent ratings with a last-minute increase as the series came to a climax. Dancing With The Stars also returned solid ratings as it ran its tenth series and Beauty And The Geek drew big numbers for what is normally a lack lustre Thursday night.
Nine’s biggest hit of 2010 was drama series Underbelly 3: The Golden Mile. Nine also scored well with the NRL State Of Origin and NRL Grand Final. Reality show The Farmer Wants A Wife returned solid ratings, while The Block (pictured), however, perhaps fell short of expectations but still managed decent numbers. Hey Hey It’s Saturday, which aired on Wednesday nights before being reinstated to its traditional Saturday night spot, has struggled to maintain significant support outside of Melbourne and its future is yet to be decided. Top Gear and its Australian version rated well. Sydney-based police drama Cops LAC failed to click with viewers.
For Network Ten, as well as the primary channel taking out the 16-39 age group, the biggest hit was once again 
New drama series Offspring (starring Asher Keddie, pictured) returned good Sunday night figures, particularly with younger viewers, although the Thursday night series Rush has struggled to be consistent and has seen ratings fall. Both shows have been renewed for 2011.
The XIX Commonwealth Games have come to a close – and while India will be congratulating itself for a successful 11 days of competition, back in Australia the Ten Network might be quietly licking a few wounds.
Also impacting Ten’s performance is the somewhat limiting anti-siphoning legislation – meaning that even though Ten has a secondary channel with One HD, combined they could only really offer a single-channel approach to coverage – something which is often at odds with such a large competition where there are multiple events occurring at the same time – while up against rival networks offering 2, 3 or 4 viewing alternatives. Ten might have helped stop the flow of viewers to other networks if it had launched its new entertainment channel, 11, with its own alternative to Games coverage, but instead the channel is scheduled to launch early in 2011.
With the obvious pre-Games expectation of the saturation coverage delivering a ratings dividend leading into the last six weeks of ratings competition for the year, it now appears that Ten will be needing to offer some promises to make good to advertisers wanting more bang for their sponsorship dollars and, with shows like The 7PM Project, Neighbours, Undercover Boss, Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation, Junior Masterchef, Modern Family, The Simpsons, Rush and Offspring having been out of circulation for two weeks, now has to work hard to drag viewers back to the network as it heads into the home straight of the ratings survey year. And with daylight saving now part of the equation, that makes the task of attracting viewers’ attention in the early evening even more of a struggle.
