This year, we will be launching some great initiatives, along with a major project that will return one of our past posts to new life, with new ideas. Let’s introduce the main initative right now.
-#SaveQLDTV 2.0, and the #WheresTheDoco fundraising effort for institutions like NFSA.
This site, has already detailed it’s call to action, just four days ago. We intend to follow through with it, throughout 2020, through our social media networks, (inc. the resurrected SaveQLDTV Facebook group, now admin’d through our FB page) and hopefully with some realistic action on the #WheresTheDoco telethon concept visioned in the call to action, once we hit mid-year: as too many other people, who have suffered since the tragedy of the severe bushfires throughout this country peaked on New Year’s Eve, 2019 (out of which this site has delayed both the call to action for #WheresTheDoco, and this post launching our year, out of respect for victims both living and deceased) deserve your monetary donations far more right now:
Red Cross Bushfire Appeal:
https://www.redcross.org.au/campaigns/disaster-relief-and-recovery-new-years-eve#donate
NSW RFS:
https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/volunteer/support-your-local-brigade
Salvation Army:
https://www.salvationarmy.org.au/about-us/news-and-stories/disasters-other-appeals/bushfires-latest/
https://www.redcross.org.au/campaigns/disaster-relief-and-recovery-new-years-eve#donate
NSW RFS:
https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/volunteer/support-your-local-brigade
Salvation Army:
https://www.salvationarmy.org.au/about-us/news-and-stories/disasters-other-appeals/bushfires-latest/
WIRES (Animal rescue)
https://www.wires.org.au/donate/emergency-fund
GIVIT (who will spend your donations as practically as possible)
http://givit.org.au/items-needed?campaign=50
https://www.wires.org.au/donate/emergency-fund
GIVIT (who will spend your donations as practically as possible)
http://givit.org.au/items-needed?campaign=50
-And speaking of infrastructure.
Announced last year, Main Line Evolution (our vision, that regional rail to Bundaberg/Hervey Bay tied in with NCL improvements should be the next step after Cross River Rail), and Network 2021 (a public transport network upgrade for Moreton Bay Region, in 2021 (5th anniversary of MBRL opening), will be posted in mid year as part of a public transport-themed lead-in to #untitledSEQuel, which we can guarantee, one thing.
The real name, of #untitledSEQuel, will not be revealed, until both Main Line Evolution and Network 2021 are out. Let’s just say, #untitledSEQuel, will be a blueprint to achieve even greater solutions than even the original never thought possible.
In the middle of the #untitledSEQuel mystery, will also be the posting of the 6:30 War.
Also: DST guide will be back in September (whether or not it will be a quick read, is up to those on Mt Coot-tha, after last year dumping Nine because of events surrounding #WheresTheDoco, it is unknown if they will be back: all it takes is a 60th doco and a apology to viewers, Nine!), along with a huge first for this site in the last ratings week of 2020 that will literally cross borders.
-Content Survey Live:
-Content Survey Live:
I swear I said in August last year, that it was the final time that I was
counting content. But much like, John Farnham and Terry Funk, retirement is only
a word to me.
So, the content study is back: on it’s own for the first time ever, with a little twist.
You won’t just be seeing it gathered up at the end.
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), 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”:
-Locally sourced stories: that is stories reported by local journos. Really big local stories with national impacts, also fit here.
So, the content study is back: on it’s own for the first time ever, with a little twist.
You won’t just be seeing it gathered up at the end.
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), 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”:
-Locally sourced stories: that is stories reported by local journos. Really big local stories with national impacts, also fit here.
-Live crosses: stuff that is used to embellish a story.
-Weather is not counted: Sorry Bailey.
-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 night: to see if any lessons have been learned by 10
in eighteen months.
The twist, can now be revealed.
These content studies, will be individual events (that is: a post for every bulletin that week), as opposed to being done in a five day lump for each city’s bulletin. It will mean a comprehensive review of a city’s 10 News 5pm bulletin produced by the next morning: hence the term, Content Survey Live.
This will also prove to viewers a major point: which markets for 10, are
actually producing enough local news (a key point in light of booting Celebrity
Name Game) to make them relevant as a 90min bulletin.
The target 10 needs to reach for it’s news if it is to become a viable alternative at 90min, needs to be that it needs to have 50% more locally-sourced stories than 7/9’s hour of news, at minimum. If 10 cannot meet these targets in November: questions surely need to be asked about the current news management's motivation: especially as 10's corporate parent CBS (fresh off a merger with Viacom to become ViacomCBS, which now sees 10 in the same corporate family as MTV and Britain's Channel 5) values local news heavily: including being halfway through a CBSN Local rollout: (with five local 24/7 streaming news services already launched, and eight more to come for the time being) as well as making a move to supply news to three CBS-owned CW network stations: in Detroit (in a duopoly with a CBS owned and operated station that also doesn't run local news, but has weather talent), Atlanta and Tampa (where, CBS only owns and operates the CW station in those markets).
If ViacomCBS is likely to be in a investing mood, when it comes to Australia: and if 10's news is seen to underperform or to be underperforming (as the content studies may end up proving), drastic changes in news management will need to be made, to make it perform at the levels the US parent wants.
10 as a network in 2020, is producing not much more local news than the network had when Eleven was announced in August 2010.
The target 10 needs to reach for it’s news if it is to become a viable alternative at 90min, needs to be that it needs to have 50% more locally-sourced stories than 7/9’s hour of news, at minimum. If 10 cannot meet these targets in November: questions surely need to be asked about the current news management's motivation: especially as 10's corporate parent CBS (fresh off a merger with Viacom to become ViacomCBS, which now sees 10 in the same corporate family as MTV and Britain's Channel 5) values local news heavily: including being halfway through a CBSN Local rollout: (with five local 24/7 streaming news services already launched, and eight more to come for the time being) as well as making a move to supply news to three CBS-owned CW network stations: in Detroit (in a duopoly with a CBS owned and operated station that also doesn't run local news, but has weather talent), Atlanta and Tampa (where, CBS only owns and operates the CW station in those markets).
If ViacomCBS is likely to be in a investing mood, when it comes to Australia: and if 10's news is seen to underperform or to be underperforming (as the content studies may end up proving), drastic changes in news management will need to be made, to make it perform at the levels the US parent wants.
10 as a network in 2020, is producing not much more local news than the network had when Eleven was announced in August 2010.
And, if this unprecedented event does poke the bear towards more news investment by 10 (along with a ironclad commitment to make sure it works), it will be good news for journalism in this country.
And, finally.
A announcement for 202...1
This site, will be producing, around the Australia Day long weekend next year, a meticulously researched tribute.
With the success of our tributes to Melody Iliffe in 2017, and Billy J Smith in 2019 (what became our #1 post for for last year), it is only fitting to mark a significant anniversary, as well as being ready for what comes up.
#ProjectGordon:
On the Australia Day long weekend, next year, it will be twenty years since we lost Tony Gordon (Brisbane V/O talent, who also had a successful radio and television career) in a tragic aircraft accident. It is only fitting, that we look back at the life, and career of someone who is still in people's minds.
And, as a final footnote:
"And, it may just be a mistake Seven may end up rueing: in light of the upcoming stepping down from the news desk of Kay McGrath in just 10 days. The risk that BTQ’s weekend news, for so long the real money maker for the station: thanks to a local lead-in on both Saturday and Sunday, will fall to historic ratings lows once Kay finishes and the local lead-ins disappear in favour of Border Security reruns at 5:30 and a new face onboard at 6 in Katrina Blowers (one very familiar with the effect a scorned Brisbane audience would have: as she was part of thisAfternoon, the national afternoon product Nine launched after Extra’s demise 10 years ago, which didn’t even last 18 days: thanks to poor reception in Queensland) is very very real."
(A reference to the axing of Queensland Weekender, Creek to Coast and The Great Day Out and potential impacts on 7's news from #WheresTheDoco Lives On?, published on January 16, 2020)
The sheer fact 7 had to reverse this week, the axing decision two months ago for QLD Weekender (albeit now amalgamated with The Great Day Out and shifting to Sundays) and Creek to Coast (returning to 5:30 Saturdays for the first time since 2004), is literally a clear sign in my mind that Seven are worried not only about the competition launching stuff at 5:30 on weekends to fill a gap that would have existed if they didn't backflip, but whether or not Katrina Blowers will be able to bring home the ratings bacon for 7. You can only live off your predecessors popularity for so long, and the fact 7 has had relative stability on weekends since 2006, compared to Nine's weekend revolving door since Melissa Downes got promoted to weeknight newsreading duties in 2009, leaves 7 with a major dilemma. What if Blowers fails on weekends, either through poor ratings or poor decisions (e.g. a second attempt by 7 to axe Creek to Coast/QLD Weekender a year down the track, a potential decision by news management in Sydney to dump Brisbane's 15yr old Sunday flashback segment (a move that would ignite just as much passion as the moves to axe Creek to Coast/QLD Weekender and The Great Day Out), or even, news management changes in Brisbane akin to those of 2001) and 7 has to play catch-up for the first time in fifteen years?
Then, as is now: only time will tell.
And, finally.
A announcement for 202...1
This site, will be producing, around the Australia Day long weekend next year, a meticulously researched tribute.
With the success of our tributes to Melody Iliffe in 2017, and Billy J Smith in 2019 (what became our #1 post for for last year), it is only fitting to mark a significant anniversary, as well as being ready for what comes up.
#ProjectGordon:
On the Australia Day long weekend, next year, it will be twenty years since we lost Tony Gordon (Brisbane V/O talent, who also had a successful radio and television career) in a tragic aircraft accident. It is only fitting, that we look back at the life, and career of someone who is still in people's minds.
And, as a final footnote:
"And, it may just be a mistake Seven may end up rueing: in light of the upcoming stepping down from the news desk of Kay McGrath in just 10 days. The risk that BTQ’s weekend news, for so long the real money maker for the station: thanks to a local lead-in on both Saturday and Sunday, will fall to historic ratings lows once Kay finishes and the local lead-ins disappear in favour of Border Security reruns at 5:30 and a new face onboard at 6 in Katrina Blowers (one very familiar with the effect a scorned Brisbane audience would have: as she was part of thisAfternoon, the national afternoon product Nine launched after Extra’s demise 10 years ago, which didn’t even last 18 days: thanks to poor reception in Queensland) is very very real."
(A reference to the axing of Queensland Weekender, Creek to Coast and The Great Day Out and potential impacts on 7's news from #WheresTheDoco Lives On?, published on January 16, 2020)
The sheer fact 7 had to reverse this week, the axing decision two months ago for QLD Weekender (albeit now amalgamated with The Great Day Out and shifting to Sundays) and Creek to Coast (returning to 5:30 Saturdays for the first time since 2004), is literally a clear sign in my mind that Seven are worried not only about the competition launching stuff at 5:30 on weekends to fill a gap that would have existed if they didn't backflip, but whether or not Katrina Blowers will be able to bring home the ratings bacon for 7. You can only live off your predecessors popularity for so long, and the fact 7 has had relative stability on weekends since 2006, compared to Nine's weekend revolving door since Melissa Downes got promoted to weeknight newsreading duties in 2009, leaves 7 with a major dilemma. What if Blowers fails on weekends, either through poor ratings or poor decisions (e.g. a second attempt by 7 to axe Creek to Coast/QLD Weekender a year down the track, a potential decision by news management in Sydney to dump Brisbane's 15yr old Sunday flashback segment (a move that would ignite just as much passion as the moves to axe Creek to Coast/QLD Weekender and The Great Day Out), or even, news management changes in Brisbane akin to those of 2001) and 7 has to play catch-up for the first time in fifteen years?
Then, as is now: only time will tell.
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