This post is dedicated to Queensland broadcasting legend, former reporter for the ABC's This Day Tonight, one of the founding members of the Tripod TV collective that produced for Nine Brisbane, Today Tonight between Feburary 1979 and June 1985 (a program he'd ultimately host after the departure of founding compare Glenn Taylor to Seven to start State Affair and the brief run of Andrew Carroll hosting TT post-Taylor departure), a former executive producer for 10's Good Morning Australia, presenter for Business Week, and founding presenter for Seven's TVAM (alongside Kay McGrath), John Barton: who passed away on Saturday (17/2/2024) at the age of 73.
We send our condolences to John's family (including his sons: Sam, Fraser and Hugh, who announced their father's passing this morning on the RATS Facebook page).
Content Survey Live in Feburary…
Welcome to Season Mode.
Welcome to 2024's edition of Content Survey Live, and this year it's all about seasons.
This year’s edition of Content Survey Live, is a five round gamble. For the next two weeks, you will witness the first two rounds of this game, that will ultimately complete itself in May’s fading light. For the first time ever, Content Survey Live will deal with a news service on 10 that is one hour long… and consists of three standalone bulletins and a hybrid that makes no sense to either the markets it serves, although there are rumors about significant changes to 10’s Brisbane news service coming in the near future.
This warm Monday night in Feburary, we kick off with the first use of the “Hometown Rule” this season: for the second time in history (last was in 2021) Brisbane will kick off a season of Content Survey Live: although, unlike 2021: it’ll be competing against Sydney’s news from the same night, not the night after.
Now, let's go over the ground rules.
The Ground Rules:
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.
-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: Some special rules will apply to certain events, e.g. Monday Night's "Hometown Rule" (where the city listed first, is obliged to be surveyed first), Brisbane's GC content count, and one for tomorrow night: analysis of story order from tonight's Sydney bulletin after the local window, and whether it is different from Brisbane's story order in the same time period.
In addition, by virtue of their sweet, sweet, victory last year...
BRISBANE:
It may well only have been 200 days since Brisbane crashed out of 2023’s Content Survey Live with a 1.5/20 in the semi final against Melbourne (who went on to win it last year): but things have changed dramatically. The hybrid’s problems simply stacked over summer non ratings, when several key stories showed outright the holes 10 has in it’s news service as a whole.
The first of these was a storm hitting Brisbane’s southern suburbs on December 15: where no live output was available at 5pm as the news opened (instead running a lengthy package on the swearing in of Stephen Miles as the new premier of Queensland at Fernberg earlier in the day as the lead), with the first notice that a storm was happening, came from not a reporter but the damn traffic reporter, while the first actual notice from the newsroom came not long after Sydney’s news had finished at 5:30pm AEST (6:30pm AEDT), which was as poor as it comes.
And, then there was 10’s response to the Cairns flood situation post-Cyclone Jasper on December 18 and 19: where the network had to resort to using employees from SCA’s radio stations (inc. the program director for HIT/MMM Cairns) in the city to make up for the lack of staff on the ground (stuck in Brisbane until Cairns Airport reopened midway through December 19), along with the results of 10’s past actions where it axed local journos filing for 10’s Brisbane news in the FNQ market, making up for the pitiful effort SCA had put into the market after axing it’s 6pm news product (produced to a similar standard to Nine and Seven’s Gold Coast news services, resulting in a on-air product far better than what it receives today) in 2001.
Don’t get us started on the GC storm on Christmas Day: with 10 airing no standalone local news at all into SE QLD due to a ten day “break” taken by 10 between December 22, 2023 and January 2 2024, where effectively a national bulletin aired at 5pm: a elongated version of the “Good Friday problem” (where 10 historically airs a national bulletin at 5… while other newsrooms with sense went local that day).
Not to mention, the burst water main on George St in the CBD on January 12… that happened 30mins prior to the bulletin starting (enough time to rush a news crew to the scene like Seven and Nine did for their 6pm news) and cyclone Kirraly, with enough time to rush both Josh Holt and a reporter to Townsville, yet had to rely on a cross to recently retired MMM Townsville brekky presenter Steve Price at his house for the Project... airing in the southern states just as Brisbane’s news went to air.
The solution we recommend for 10 in regional QLD, will be posted after this review.
But we go back to December 15’s poor coverage, and look at a comparison, back now to a time when TVQ’s news got it right most of the time: the 1980’s.
January 18, 1985. Severe thunderstorm hits Brisbane in the lead-up to peak hour: passing over the Brisbane CBD ninety minutes before TVQ’s fifth-ever hourlong bulletin (the station making the move earlier that week) went to air. TVQ’s news that night got footage from Brisbane’s west and the aftermath in the inner northern suburbs, and raced it up the hill to be part of the opening story of that night’s news, despite swathes of Brisbane being blacked out.
And, then there was some hope: Kendall Gilding finishing up with 7 in late December, with the hope amongst many that she’d look to Erin Edwards to bring her in as the first Brisbane-based newsreader for 10 since 2020. Naturally, she’d been stringing people along all through January and February toward her next destination.
So far, Kendall has played secret squirrel on her future prospects far better than Bill McDonald in 2013, and most critically: there has been no Morocco Mole action from within the network concerning a potential Kendall Gilding hiring.
So, let's begin the first content survey of 2024.
We open up tonight's bulletin, with a story on Gold Coast police morale (which took up exactly 15secs of the story, tied in with a Ipswich cabinet meeting and a opposition leader who is too hamstrung by interests elsewhere to blame everything happening in Queensland and the world today on the 2032 Olympics... (wait, the last one is more of a One Queensland thing), a live cross to the courts at Roma St about a charge dropped from a impending trial, a story about the potential relocation of the AIS being supported by the chancellor of Griffith University (which incidentally has a perfectly AIS-shaped space coming up: the soon to be closed Mt Gravatt GU campus: which is being closed in favour of beefing up the Nathan campus), Andrew Fraser.
But the worst story of the night, and quite possibly of the entire competition (even though it's only the first night!) is a piece on the upcoming resumptions for the Bruce Hwy Western Alternative in Elimbah.
Let's see: it omitted the name of the project, couldn't get responses from neither Bart Mellish or the shadow transport minister, not even the local member, instead: it turns out looking like a voxpop in the street more than a story.
But: the worst part: "Sunshine Coast highway resumptions" right at the end of the news... especially with the few still watching the bulletin (too busy waiting for jackpot counters) would rightfully know that Elimbah is not in the Sunshine Coast council area, but in the Moreton Bay City council area: Division 12 to be precise.
One sports story tonight (no mug, but a winner for the graphics: "Knee-d to Know" concerning a Broncos player racing the clock pre-Las Vegas trip) while a obviously QLD Reds-supplied video is somehow used as a VO'd story.
The post local window rundown (a benefit of DST I guess, and important for tomorrow's Sydney piece)
Taylor Swift Sydney concert preparations, death of 2021 Melbourne Cup winner Verry Elleegant, a story from a survivor of "that" mushroom story from last year, piece on Israel situation, protests against Putin, shootout in Minneapolis, sandstorms in China, a fire at a recycling plant for batteries in France, latest on King Charles, the mankini horserider and a piece on the BAFTAs.
Overall: 10's performance tonight with the Brisbane side of the hybrid is lacklustre. The fact that you can tell in some parts of the bulletin that Sandra's getting tired (occasional missed words, some confusion, most critically in the closer where she almost said "Monday" not "tomorrow", leads me to believe that the Brisbane bulletin is now literally done straight out of Sydney's bulletin (where as 10 got away with pre-recording Brisbane's opening window with a 90min bulletin even in the summer months): something that will hang around until April.
Sadly, 10 shooting Brisbane's and Sydney's news back to back in the summer months (in fact, at anytime of the year) is a significant problem that needs to be addressed fully, by returning the bulletin back to Brisbane sooner rather than later: and if it means acquiring Kendall Gilding's services... then so be it.
The scores:
Three local stories (with the Elimbah story easily the worst),
One voiced over story (of PR footage)
One live cross,
One sports story whose headline outdid the story itself.
Last year, the Brisbane bulletin scored 0.5/10 and 1/10,
The score for round one for Brisbane: 2/10.
A score that is higher than last year's combined average, but is still poor.
And, now about that suggestion for improving regional QLD coverage at 10:
I believe the best option is for 10 to hire video journalists up and down the coast to reduce the reliance on pool feeds and costly flights for Brisbane journalists to cover regional QLD stories. These journalists can then be used to provide the news backbone for the regional QLD 10 affiliate if Paramount ends up buying it in the wake of the SCA/ARN carveup, allowing said station to match any new local news quotas.
A Flood of Memories: 1974 Revisited
(thanks to some Brisbane Telegraph and Sunday Sun microfiche over at SLQ)
Welcome, to a feature that will span both Content Survey Live's this year. This concept was originally devised for the "City With a Golden Anniversary" Content Survey Live event coming up in mid-May, where we were going to post historic Telegraph front page images matching up with the first week of TVQ's news in 1974 (which I did late in 2023)... but inspiration somehow led to me spending three hours on the Australia Day long weekend in early 2024 bringing together some additional front pages, and some surprises (one is scheduled for a date that didn't happen in 1974, but is another first for Content Survey Live this year). We now look back on Feburary 18, 1974.
The big front page story that afternoon, is the mysterious disappearance of a former prisoner, who had been a witness to a investigation at Wacol prison.
Well, that is it: for the opening night of Content Survey Live: Season Mode. Join us tomorrow for a review of Sydney's Monday bulletin.
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