Content Survey Live 2022: Night Six: Come On Up To Mediocrity (Part Two)

 Welcome to the sixth 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.

It feels like only yesterday, that we were reviewing Sydney's news: then again, today's Monday. Last Friday, we saw a major breaking story, be little more than a footnote to a rail strike story and a sports segment that forgot that there was football that night. What will Sydney dish up next, and will it be lower than 4/10?

Now, let's look at the news that consisted of 10 News First Sydney, on August 29, 2022.

The bulletin opened with a late Sunday arrest of a bikie leader in Sydney's east (replayed after 6pm), another piece on more rail union troubles, the release of a report into a plane crash in 2020 involving firefighting aircraft (replayed after 6pm), as well as compensation for NSW taxi drivers after Uber's introduction into the state. In addition, there were two voiced over pieces: a Mt Druitt hit and run, and the reopening of Allianz Stadium last night.

The sports presentation was just as woeful as Friday night: with absolute zero mention of the NRL games that were played twenty four hours prior: after all, the battle for the wooden spoon is often just as much watched as the battle for the minor premiership.

However: one breaking story in Brisbane, in this bulletin deserves as we said back on Tuesday: all the criticism.

10's mentions of a triple fatal light plane crash in the Fernvale-Lowood area of South East Queensland tonight are probably the worst examples of breaking story coverage we've ever seen on Content Survey Live. The Sydney/Brisbane hybrid section of the bulletin kicks off with the breaking news about the accident, with no vision at all, no mention of having a crew on the road, and no explanation or graphics for the viewers from Sydney watching the bulletin of where this accident happened.

Fast forward to 6pm, where we see the following.
-Live cross to a deserted Brisbane newsroom
-A map appears of where the accident occurred.
-Stock footage of Archerfield Airport: where the plane was supposed to land.
-Most critically: there was no access to the pooled vision that Seven and Nine literally opened their bulletins with in Brisbane tonight.

The pieces Joel Dry and Peter Fegan did tonight on this story on 7/9 respectively: explained the whole situation far better than 10 ever could: and can be shown easily to a national audience.

However: this will not affect the Sydney outcome (the sports presentation impacted the Sydney score far more)... it will instead impact Brisbane's results on Thursday, in a fashion that will be announced then.

Yet another reason, why Brisbane news needs to be divorced from the Sydney bulletin.

The scores:
-four local stories (two rerun post-6pm)
-two v/o'd pieces.
-sports segment that was useless, especially if you missed the games yesterday
-The less said about the post-6pm live cross the better.

On Friday, 10's Sydney news scored a 4/10.
Tonight, 10's Sydney news scored a 3/10.
Overall, for the two nights of survey, 10's Sydney news scored: 7/20.

10 News First again missed the OzTam 5 City top 20 on Monday: becoming quite a pattern.

The downhill slide of 10's Sydney news product continues: albeit with Brisbane being dragged down with it, this time around. I again say this: the time has now come to reinvest in Queensland and divorce the Sydney and Brisbane news services, as again, when news breaks in Queensland: a unopposed 10 in Queensland (unlike Adelaide and Perth) cannot capitalize on it.

Tomorrow, we burn the midnight oil again, back again to Perth: whose week one score has eclipsed Sydney's combined score for the whole event.

As we say goodbye to Sydney for 2022, we leave with one more Sydney advertisement that was too extravagant for it's own good.
Of course, we couldn't have a advertising carnival of extravagance, without the one and only Joyce Mayne.

Let's now step back to 1979: when Sharp home electronics were the hot ticket at Joyce's at Auburn: today home to the Domayne flagship amongst others.

Video from Australian Advertisment Archive on Youtube.