Content Survey Live: Yesterday's Hero: Round 2: Night 1: Pope Francis Steals The Show.

 Don't you just love public holiday Mondays... and then big news breaks a hour before airtime?

Welcome, to the first night of the second round of Content Survey Live for 2025. The opening round, saw Melbourne and Brisbane take home the chocolates, while this round, Melbourne is off on it's bye round... while last year's champions, Adelaide are set to break down barriers as their competition in Perth is about to kick off, with Easter Monday's news... starting in around twelve hours or so from now.

And now, the ground rules for the 2025 season.

Our focus, in Content Survey Live will be monitoring Ten’s five capital city news services (a benefit of technological change, now allowing us to watch interstate bulletins on delay), 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.

-(NEW in 2025) Local overnight news: Handled via a system we call collectively, the “Ray Robinson Number”: 1pt for V/O’d overnight news, 2pts for a full story, the total is reported at each survey’s end. A special prize will be given for the regular season’s Ray Robinson Number leader. 

-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

-(NEW in 2025) The “Hometown Rule” now applies to both Monday and Thursday night in the regular season as well as in the three Four Quarter Blitz finals (where the highest ranked participant goes first) outside of the Grand Final.

- (NEW in 2025) No 2nd survey (i.e. Tuesday/Friday) can be posted until 12hrs have elapsed after the live survey (Monday/Thursday) in the main season and the three Four Quarter Blitz finals outside the Grand Final. It can be worked on however, and scheduled.

-(NEW in 2025) Ties on the table, at the end of the season, have their seeding for finals decided by countback of fixture scores excluding byes (out of 40)

Perth last week shockingly lost to Brisbane, and sent a message to the competition concerning the Ghidella/Adsett effect. Now it has to face last year's champions to even retain some chance of making it all the way this year, let alone a good finals seed.

Tonight, we made history.
Tonight's second Perth survey for the season... will be the first ever WA survey conducted as part of Content Survey Live to not be in the "midnight run" department.

We called a audible, at 6:15pm AEST tonight (Monday night, 21/4/2025), at Content Survey Live HQ, to do Perth's survey live, in light of significant breaking news from the Vatican.

Traditionally, Perth surveys, if they are drawn first in a fixture, due to the "Hometown Rule" are done after the opposing market in real time, due to the time difference between the west coast and east coast. Tonight: however, is a significant change in plans due to significant events. 

We open tonight's news, with the big breaking story at 5pm AWST (7pm AEST): the death of Pope Francis (who had literally presented Easter mass less than twenty four hours earlier), after recent health issues.

10 Perth instantly went into a newsroom live cross, and straight into a pre-prepared obituary by Hugh Riminton (which, like most obituaries for notable public figures was ready to go after most likely being tidied up when Pope Francis was in hospital, back in Feburary)
Afterwards, we go into the story that would have been the lead, prior to 4pm AWST this afternoon: a overnight car crash in Leederville (two points for the Ray Robinson Number), followed by a story on a Easter long weekend brawl at Scarborough, more on the confirmation of WWE's return to Perth in October (dates unknown at publishing), with WA tourism minister doing a poor impression of John Cena (Americans, that's coming to Bluesky on Tuesday at the earliest): although I'd think that he's secretly a Cody Rhodes man, followed by a story on WA's credit card debt captials...

We then have voiced over pieces on a Cockburn Sound rescue, Nedlands Council raising a diddly stink about a park for a childrens hospice...

As well as the Volunteer Firefighter Games in Bunbury.

Post 5:30pm AWST, we have a second cross to the newsroom, with the addition of highlights from a press briefing from PM Anthony Albanese.

Meanwhile, Sport is your typical Perth Monday night sports fare, AFL wraps, reviews of upcoming West Coast and Fremantle games as well as those on the weekend: Fremantle, particularly have a Anzac Day game versus Adelaide on Friday.

Overall, Perth tonight has the gumption to show up when the news breaks. The fact they were able to run with the Pope Francis story tonight as the lead, at less than a hours notice and run a prepared obituary is a shock to many underestimating 10's potential to run with breaking news.

Compare it to the outsourced Project that literally pumped and dumped the Francis story early on, especially when they could have called the Melbourne newsroom in the same building for access to the obituary Perth ran as it's lead tonight.

The scores:
Four local stories.
Two live crosses that added value to a significant breaking news story.
Three voiced over pieces,
A Ray Robinson Number of 2.

Last round, Perth scored a 5.8/10.
Tonight, Perth scored a 7/10.

Tonight, Perth again shows the way where timezones can indeed work to it's advantage... while tonight for the first time, a Adelaide midnight run... is coming second to Perth, and will likely potentially come second in this fixture..

The 6:00 Sunday Night Sound:

Monday night, Easter Monday: and after we’ve gone through some early Countdown era gems, it’s fitting that we enter the eighties.

Note: this was written a week or so before the news tonight.

1979, was the halcyon days for novelty acts in the Australian charts. The Mojo Singers selling World Series Cricket, and of course, Seven Melbourne, contracting Mike Brady to do “Up There Cazaly” as their theme for their VFL coverage, which both not only won national chart success, but significant staying power, long after the final piece of vinyl sold out.

In fact, Up There Cazaly, ended up holding the honour of as the highest selling record in Australian history… until a inexplicit gamble by Mike Brady and his record label in 1980 ultimately led to Cazaly’s sales records being smashed in Australia, while becoming a overseas breakout hit.

Joe Dolce, a Italian/American comedian who had relocated to Australia in the late seventies, did it by simply telling us… to Shaddup You Face.

And, it worked, to the point Dolce’s song wasn’t just Countdown material… but performed in front of audiences (who were as stiff as boards until the singalong at the end)

And, when it finally broke through overseas: it even ended up on Top of The Pops… just as the song became a hit in the UK.

And much like Mojo’s C’mon Aussie C’mon (which became the effective anthem of Australian cricket once the World Series Cricket schism was healed), and Mike Brady’s Up There Cazaly (infamously redone in 1999 for it’s 20th anniversary), Joe Dolce’s sole big hit became a evergreen: made more so by the most non-Italian/European/American car company you can think of (not, Toyota, but Mitsubishi) using it… to sell cars to Australians at the turn of the century.

Tomorrow night: Marty Rhone.

Well, that's it for another Monday night survey: one that will be remembered for the moves made in the last hour before airtime to break some significant news. Tomorrow, the fixture will be decided, when Adelaide comes to the plate with the first ever Adelaide midnight run... a concept so crazy that it sounds a hell of a lot like fries with a side of hamburger.

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