“They gather together, hundreds and hundreds,
To watch a news service where too many have been punted,
As quality slides, their opinion much like a deer is hunted,
Does local news matter, in a 18 minute span,
Does 10 realise the product’s poor with no locals handling the plan,
Their news service is in very bad health,
In desperate need for increased wealth,
Until such time as 10 ends this austerity monstrosity…
You’ll have Content Survey Live… to celebrate mediocrity.”
The poem from Boxing Day, is just as apt as ever.
Welcome, to Content Survey Live 2022: Celebrate Mediocrity.
This, is Night Zero.
Welcome, to the post that will announce the 2022 seedings for Content Survey Live. This year's carnival, again is a two week stanza. After the popularity of last year's event, we aim to step it up a notch. Instead of one week of survey of 10's news performance... it'll be two weeks of survey: meaning that every market will get twice the opportunity to show why they can attempt to wrench away the wooden spoon seemingly bolted to the floor of a dwindling Brisbane newsroom at 10.
This event begins on August 22 (a week later than 2021, to ensure we have the ability to stream 10's bulletins post-Commonwealth Games) , and runs until September 2.
Now, let's reveal what you all came here for (especially those reading this on the 13th of July: good on you for avoiding the final State of Origin at Suncorp).
The Ground Rules and Rankings:
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” 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.
How we decided the placings for the survey and ultimately: which cities will be run on which days, have come from a two week ratings tracking study, from the 20th of June to the 1st of July and will be utilized in two ways.
The first week, will seed bulletins based on comparisons with 2021 figures.
The second week, will seed bulletins based on comparisons with pre-pandemic ratings figures, from 2019.
The seeding process for this year, has been especially made harder, by the fact during the seeding period this year, 10's 5pm news service failed to make the national overnight top 20 that OzTam supplies to places like TV Tonight, a grand total of four nights out of ten.
We can now tell you, this in confidence.
Week 1's rankings, and date of survey, can be revealed.
(Note: 2021 figures these were compared with were heavily impacted by COVID-related news in 3/5 markets.)
22/8/2022 (1): Adelaide (down by just 1000 viewers compared to 2021)
23/8/2022 (2): Brisbane (down 15,000 viewers compared to 2021)
24/8/2022 (3): Perth (down 14,000 viewers compared to 2021 (slightly less than Brisbane): but on percentages it got them third (Brisbane shed 23% of viewers, Perth shed 30% of viewers)
25/8/2022 (4): Melbourne (down 28,000 viewers compared to 2021).
26/8/2022 (5): Sydney (down 43,000 viewers compared to 2021)
Week 2, is based off pre-pandemic ratings figures from 2019 (the same figures utilized in 2020 to seed each market in the inaugural Content Survey Live) compared with this year's figures.
29/8/2022 (1): Sydney (down 12% on 2019 (from 101k average 5-6pm, to 89k)
30/8/2022 (2): Perth (down 15% on 2019 (from 54k average 5-6pm to 46k)
31/8/2022 (3): Melbourne (down 19% on 2019 (from 100k average 5-6pm to 81k)
1/9/2022 (4): Brisbane (down 23% on 2019 (from 86k average 5-6pm to 66k)
2/9/2022 (5): Adelaide (down 45% on 2019 (from 47k average 5-6pm to 26k)
The highlights of this year's survey period, will be as follows:
-Adelaide and Brisbane will bookend the survey (Adelaide drawing #1 in week 1, and #5 in week 2, while Brisbane drew #2 in week 1, and #4 in week 2)
-We will have the unprecedented task of Sydney back to back (drawing #5 in week 1 and drawing #1 in week 2)
And, most importantly, no market has drawn the same day in week 2 that it did in week 1.
Well, that's it. Join us here, on 23/8/2022, for the first post of the 2022 Content Survey Live season: Adelaide: in a case of "Mediocrity 2022 vintage".
A little hint though: every title this season, will somehow mention the word "Mediocrity".
And, a reminder: if you want to purchase Content Survey Live 2022 merchandise: it is available at our Redbubble page.
See you, on August 23, and remember that mediocrity deserves to be celebrated... even if they can't see the forest for the trees: especially when it is paramount to have a comprehensive local news service in markets outside Sydney and Melbourne: that doesn't just become a great beginning to a night's viewing (after all, a strong news service could well bolster primetime shares for 10), but also keeps others on their toes.
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