Content Survey Live 2022: Night Nine: Spring Fever, With A Side of Mediocrity

 Welcome to the ninth night, of the ten best nights of 2022 in our books: the third edition of Content Survey Live. This year's changes are significant, but the ground rules always stay the same here.

The Ground Rules:

Our focus, in Content Survey Live traditionally has been monitoring Ten’s five capital city news services (a benefit of technological change, now allowing us to watch interstate bulletins on delay), in order of their ratings position within the network (with each market covered once) over a week, using the same criteria we used in the “Great Local News Study” from Kuttsy's Pitch XI in August, 2019.

-Locally sourced stories: that is stories reported by local journos. Really big local market stories with national impacts, also fit here. Voiced over local stories are counted separately.
-Live crosses: stuff that is used to embellish a story.
-Weather is not counted.
-Sport is not counted if it’s done by obviously freelance journos, or voiced over pieces: you gotta have dedicated reporters there, with their mug on air reporting a sports story for it to count.
-And finally: Ten Brisbane will have it’s Gold Coast content tracked again during it’s nights: something that has become a tradition in itself.

However in 2022, we have expanded to a two week format, with a entirely new way to rank bulletins
The first week, will seed bulletins based on comparisons with 2021 figures.
The second week, will seed bulletins based on comparisons with pre-pandemic and pre-centralization figures sourced from 2019.

A reminder now of this week's seedings:
Monday (29/8) Sydney.
Tuesday (30/8) Perth.
Wednesday (31/8) Melbourne.
Thursday (1/9) Brisbane.
Friday (2/9) Adelaide.

Now, let's begin today's heaping bowl of broadcast news mediocrity.

And, a reminder: to purchase merchandise related to Content Survey Live 2022, head on over to our shop over at Redbubble.

So, Content Survey Live has entered the zone they called September. After yesterday's hayfever piece in Melbourne, we are reminded that today is the first day of spring. Last week, we got given a Brisbane bulletin that quite frankly, stunk of a deficit of immediacy and relevancy.

Add in the fact that on Monday, we got reporting on a local breaking story that looked like it was more in place at Southern Cross's studio in Tasmania (where the much derided noodle updates for regional viewers are made), than a metropolitan bulletin serving 3m+ people locally, and another two million outside the SE corner, and you have the potential for a significant impact on today's score... just based on judgement of Monday's story.

Now, let's have a look at what once was 10 News Brisbane, on the 1st of September, 2022.

We open the bulletin with a piece on a crash into a house at Hemmant, which is replayed after 6pm (labeled as "Brisbane" because Sydney viewers wouldn't know where the hell or what a "Hemmant" is), followed by pieces on a CFMEU rally, Riverfire (that poorly explains the return to a early September date) and a piece at a flooded soccer club.

We have two Gold Coast pieces, Payne Haas's mother (a live cross intro lasting 45secs, that got rerun at 6pm as a V/O'd piece) and a shark net protest (1min25secs)

Sport, is as sloppy as ever. More airtime given to the Lions/Tigers AFL final with a reporter's mug on air (which turned out to be a thriller) and the first NRL game at the rebuilt Sydney Football Stadium than the game at CommBank in Parramatta tonight between Parramatta and the Melbourne Storm (which turned out to catapult Parramatta to fourth just before finals.)

In addition, there was one post-6pm V/O'd piece, concerning Laurie Lawrence's attempt to introduce a sensory play angle to his water safety program.

The scores:
Four local stories, one replayed post-6pm
One voiced over piece that wasn't from the Gold Coast.
A sports segment that sadly encourages you to change channels.
Two GC stories (one rerun at 6pm as a V/O'd story, after being a live cross in a newsroom with just two people) adding up to 2mins 10secs.

Overall, the score last week for 10's Brisbane news was 1.75 out of 10.
In normal circumstances, tonight's Brisbane news on 10 scored a 2/10.

However. I will now reveal the score penalty, that Brisbane's news will receive tonight after that dreadful coverage of the triple fatal plane crash in the Brisbane Valley on Monday night. I like giving away two points for coverage that excels. I also believe that it is also right and fair to take away points if coverage somehow misses the mark completely.

I decree, that the Brisbane bulletin tonight lose two points from it's score, as a consequence of poorly presented breaking news coverage on Monday night.

Thus, the score tonight for Brisbane's news on 10, is a historic first for Content Survey Live: a 0/10.
Overall, during the two weeks of survey, the combined score for Brisbane, securing them the wooden spoon for the third year straight: 1.75/20.

Thursday night, 10 News First is once again outside the OzTam 5 City overnight top 20.

Yes, tonights bulletin may have been slightly better: but it was not enough to outweigh the penalty from Monday night's blunder. As I have said, now for the fourth time this year, Paramount: Brisbane and Sydney news needs to be completely separated. Brisbane is dragging Sydney's news down, and Sydney is dragging Brisbane's news down. Both are markets with strong local identities, and deserve far better than the single window treatment, with two thirds of bulletins shared between the two markets. There needs to be a outright push within 10's newsroom to send Brisbane's news home, and reinvest in it. In the two survey's we've run this year, no 10 Brisbane crew has left the SE corner once to cover a story, while the competition has unlimited budgets to send a reporter and camera operator, with a live link unit anywhere in Queensland at a moment's notice. The lack of access to pooled helicopter footage, in a state as vast as Queensland by 10 on a regular basis is a huge and visible detriment to having an successful news service.

Any wonder, 10's Queensland news service got just 1.75/20 in 2022.

Tomorrow night, we culminate this journey in Adelaide, where it all began nearly two weeks ago. We will crown a winner, and reiterate the crowning of a wooden spooner.

We now have, the second last of our advertisements that are too extravagant for it's own good. We now turn the clock back, to 1999: when the Treasury Casino thought it'd be wise to recruit none other than Ian Turpie (who passed away in March 2012) to sell people on not driving into the Brisbane CBD to visit Treasury Casino.

Both, from ilovemytele2000 on Youtube.

But, as a bonus: we have a highlight from Roy and HG's Club Buggery: where Turps, gets his pipes around Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit".

From Electronic Alliance TV on Youtube.