kwNetwork Select: 2024

 

Happy Boxing Day, and welcome to the KW Network Select for 2024.

How do we fill the grid this year? Let us begin from the top.

One Queensland: Reborn.

A new look, for One Queensland has arrived… as we launch One Queensland: the website.

One Queensland's brand new social media logo:

One Queensland's brand new long look logo (which has gone through two phases of evolution (the first phase actually omitting the Q) prior to reveal)

Taking leaves from other great content providers, such as Sydney-based Building Beautifully, One Queensland, in it’s new website incarnation (OneQLD.blogspot.com) intends to explore the three key themes we set out on in 2022: Queensland’s promise, Queensland’s present and Queensland’s future.

We have launched officially today, with our piece on the SEQ public transport network (originally scheduled here in October this year) entitled: “Getting Real Brisbane (and SEQ) Moving”.

In addition, we hope to evolve our position further throughout 2024, Queensland’s bicentennial of European settlement.

And, it looks like now: the grid is starting to fill up.

And, now some Veritas on KW related news…

And it’s got a lot to do with this teaser back in August 2023, at the end of the Call of The Tribes season of Content Survey Live.

Content Survey Live: Season Mode.

2024’s Content Survey Live, will be a five part adventure (effectively a season), utilizing the same schedule as 2023 (two surveys Monday, one survey each on Thurs/Fri)… However, due to the 2024 Olympics, we have tweaked the schedule just a little bit.

Content Survey Live: Season Mode, begins on Feburary 19, 2024 for the first two rounds of survey, ending on March 1. Round 3, will occur between April 8 and April 12 2024. Round 4 and 5, will occur between May 19 and May 31 2024.

This means, the first two rounds, will mark a historic first: the first ever Content Survey Live surveys recorded during the daylight saving time period: something originally proposed for the concept’s genesis in 2020 (pre-pandemic goal was November 2020): before, 10 got the itch to axe news services which saw it be brought forward to August 2020.

In this new system, all cities will be entitled to a bye week: based on their position from this year’s Content Survey Live, except for Brisbane and Sydney (who are based on their Semi Final number from last year). If you got out in the week 1 or 2 this year, you’ll be entitled to a bye in rounds 4/5 next year. If you are the GF participants, you will be entitled to a week 1-2 bye. Lost the preliminary? You’ve got a bye in round 3.

In fact: every city will face each other, once.

For example: Brisbane gets a week 4 bye, faces Sydney on the very first day of Content Survey Live in 2024, gets drawn with the 2023 champions, Melbourne on week 2, (with Brisbane’s night that week being… Feburary 29), facing Perth in mid-April, before it’s final pair: Adelaide in late May.

We now present a first for Content Survey Live: our roadmap for the madness that is Season Mode.

The hometown advantage rule, means that the team listed first for Monday Night’s Content Survey Live next year, will be obliged to go first and be surveyed first: no coin tosses in 2024.

In addition: a new points scoring system will be utilised: It will not just be two differing scores out of ten: this time, being ahead, means a whole lot more.

A “winner” in a head to head fixture (Monday (standalone fixture), and Thursday/Friday (halves posted separately) will be awarded two points.

A bye holder will also be awarded two points.

A ”loss” in a head to head fixture (Monday (standalone fixture) and Thursday/Friday (halves posted separately.) will award no points.

But why is there only one week of survey in April, and Brisbane has a conveniently placed May bye…

“Content Survey Live: The City with A Golden Anniversary”.

The week before the final two rounds of survey, in May 2024 (from May 13-17 to be precise), will be a moment in time, celebrated. Starting 50 years to the night, of 10’s Brisbane news service launching, there will be a special event, going back to Content Survey Live’s roots. The week of the TVQ news golden anniversary, will be a week entirely dedicated to Brisbane’s news service, which will not count as part of the Season Mode rankings system.

The rules in “the City with A Golden Anniversary” event are as follows:

-Local packaged stories count as marks: Those produced in Brisbane with a national angle do not count.

-If it was sourced overnight in Brisbane (replacing the “Live Cross”) by either a news crew or a pool, it will be marked once if it is a voiced over piece, and marked twice if a full story has resulted from it.

-Local sports stories count regardless of whether the sports reporter shows their face.

-And, a encouragement for 10 to return their bulletin home to Queensland. Weather will count in this Content Survey Live event.

In addition, all marks will be totaled, and local stories, sport and voiced over content will be compared with the Great Local News Study results of 2019 at the end of the week.

Basically: Content Survey Live in 2024, will be a tale of two events: one celebrating the past, and one diving into the reality of 10’s news in the present.

Now, let's take another look at the grid so far:

We are halfway through: let's move onto a major staple:
DST Guide 2024/25.

Next year’s DST Guide will go live on Saturday September 28, with a post on Patreon for subscribers on Saturday September 21. DST updates for the new television season resume on January 7, as part of Veritas on KW: On Sunday’s first post for 2024.

Let's look at the grid now.

We now come to the big ticket item of this year's kwNetwork Select.

#6X2_XII
Replace “B” with “P”.

It's official. “The Pitch is Back.”

Kuttsy’s Pitch: X-Two.

The return, of Kuttsy’s Pitch will occur sometime in late 2024 (we aren’t throwing a date into the air for this, for good reason), for it’s first edition concerning television since 2019’s farewell from doing a yearly series.

But, it’s the not the 5:30 slot that has seen so much change that is warranting a comeback or even Seven’s performance. It, much like how the second Content Survey Live this year is celebrating a milestone: the return of Kuttsy’s Pitch in 2024 (which will most likely be a one-shot: especially as now content is being produced for two sites, as well as Patreon), marks the milestone of 20 years since the introduction of local news quotas by the ABA (the predecessor to today’s ACMA) to the aggregated markets in regional Australia.

The three runs of Lexicon News, in August 2021, February 2022 and most recently, November 2023 have inspired us to go this route.

The questions we will undoubtedly be raising are the following: are the quotas introduced two decades ago for local news on television in aggregated markets fit for purpose in the digital age?

Have we gone back, news wise to what it was after Prime and Southern Cross made those cuts in 2001 that triggered the local content quotas in the first place?

Maybe, this line from the 2002 report on the state of local news in regional Australia by the ABA (now ACMA) is far more apt than ever before:

"Submissions expressed concern that without competition, the news agenda can be driven by the rostering of one news media organisation and not the need to inform the community. One submission observed that with the closure of a local television news service, the remaining service is to some extent able to dictate the news agenda. 

It was alleged, for example, that because there’s no longer any competition, the remaining service does not have the pressure to get a story up on the night that it happens, and that stories have gone to air the next day."

Do we need to mandate subscription television as a separate voice (or even potentially mandating a one visual voice policy, where a linear subscription television operator cannot operate a free-to-air channel) in regional Australia: potentially putting News Corp at a crossroads: especially as such a move would likely force a significant push toward choosing what’s more viable: Sky News Australia on Foxtel… or Sky News Regional, a move that would be especially important, because of the impotence of the ACCC in 2016, in letting News acquire APN, with no strings attached: effectively handing News Corp 100% market share in Queensland for print news (something it abused, when it shut down dozens of mastheads in June 2020) and ultimately brought the number of true local commercial voices in some markets down to just two or three (local radio (either ARN or SCA), and Seven QLD on television) by the time 10/9 switched in 2021.

Maybe there is a need for a requirement that all local news/programming in aggregated markets be produced live, and in the same market (no more noodle updates for Cairns/Townsville produced in Launceston for example or Seven only producing one live bulletin in regional QLD (usually: the Sunshine Coast gets live news) every weeknight, with prerecorded news for all other markets).

And, most critically: will there be a need to potentially start penalizing metropolitan networks for the local news quotas their affiliates (and in the case of Seven: their regional O&O’s post Prime/GWN acquisition in late 2021) are failing to meet.

Join us, in 2024 for Kuttsy’s Pitch X-Two.

The Pitch Is Back.

The grid, is now full.

And, finally: we have launched in the last week, presences for One Queensland and Veritas on KW over at Bluesky, as well as a second way to back us (this one, is specific to the new One Queensland website): Ko-fi.

But, we also are giving you significant notice of a major social media shift. From August 1, 2024: our Twitter beachheads (LYBASkw, Veritas_KW and OneQLD_KW) will progressively move toward being based over at Bluesky for good (i.e. less exclusive content to Twitter, more exclusive to Bluesky). We will begin to simulcast content for their respective feeds on all three presences on Twitter/Bluesky (i.e. cross-post), from Monday April 8, 2024, with LYBASkw on Twitter going into night-light mode on August 1, 2024: OneQLD_KW on Twitter going into night-light mode on December 1, 2024 (a month after the QLD state election), and Veritas_KW on Twitter going into night-light mode on January 15, 2025.

We intend to use our expanded offering on Bluesky, to offer as many invites to Twitter users we are in regular contact with as possible to come join us there, and look up to us as we step into a brave new world.

In fact, we have a image for that very statement: complete with the new Bluesky logo and the now enabled public viewing of Bluesky posts unveiled on December 21.

"Look Up To Us On Bluesky" statement image.

This statement-making image, is on the new One Queensland website from day 1, and will be rolled out here in the near future.

The proof that our move to expand on Bluesky is one aimed at permanency: the rebranded OneQueensland logo debuted there with the launch of the OneQueensland profile on Bluesky. Twitter won’t even get the change until today (after running for two months with a transition look)

It's fitting, that today is 10 years to the date, we first realized the value of Boxing Day as our opportunity (which announced Lost TVQ: itself turning 10 in 2024 (the plan is to celebrate Lost TVQ's 10th birthday in conjunction with the TVQ news service's 50th in May next year).
That year we were proud of just nine pieces.

In 2024: we are committing to 27 pieces at Kuttsywood's Couch at minimum, at least fifty pieces (mainly consisting of the "Veritas on KW: On Sunday" weekly column, exclusive to paid subscribers) on the Kuttsywood's Couch One Patreon, and a modest five pieces minimum, for our new outpost: One Queensland.

That's a total of 82 different pieces minimum in 2024: just over 4 times what we produced in 2022 (Kuttsywood's Couch only), and nine times what we produced in 2020 (again Kuttsywood's Couch only, with no OneQLD/Veritas on KW on Twitter to promote through)

And, that friends, is something to sing about.

A reminder, to sign up for Kuttsywood's Couch One on Patreon.