Content Survey Live: Season Mode: Round 1: Night 3: It Was The Best of Times, It Was The Burford of Times.

 So, here we are at the start of the second match of Round 1...
Last year's bronze, versus last year's silver...

Welcome to the third night, of the first week of Content Survey Live in 2024. The Sydney/Brisbane matchup on Monday night seemed to live up to the billing, with Sydney taking the two points for a win purely due to the local resources at hand compared to the Brisbane bulletin that should rightfully have been brought home by now.

But, first: let's do the thing we always seem to be doing...

Let's go over the ground rules for Content Survey Live:

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, something we ran earlier this week: analysis of story order from Monday's Sydney bulletin after the local window, and whether it is different from Brisbane's story order in the same time period.

Now, let's hear the tale of the tape for Adelaide in 2024.

ADELAIDE:

The surprising hope for last year’s series (a centralization-free Adelaide bulletin made it as far as the preliminary final) has a lot more to fight for this year: especially as it is now unopposed across the 5-6pm hour (with Nine shifting the Adelaide afternoon news bulletin back to 4pm, with the Tipping Point Australia launch), and a lot more on the plate for gaffe-prone sports presenter Max Burford (now with his name on the Mix Adelaide brekky show) to attempt to boost both 10’s and Mix’s ratings at the same time…

They have to perform well tonight, especially in the wake of Perth's stumbles in last year's grand final... especially as a rematch from last year's semifinal (which Adelaide won: despite losing the coin toss that we used last year to decide who goes first) looms next week: this time with Adelaide having the advantage of the Hometown Rule, next Monday night.

So, let's begin Adelaide's first survey for this year.

We open up proceedings with two live crosses right off the bat: first concerning a arrest for a murder in Aldinga in late 2023, then delays and possible bailout for a cancer care centre in Adelaide. We then see the first two stories for tonight: a announcement on dedicated brain cancer nurses, and a concussion protocol piece from a local AFL club (the first "exclusive" of the night) in amongst the backdrop of the retirement of Melbourne Demons 2021 premiership player Angus Brayshaw earlier today. We then get voiced-over pieces about laws set to keep a greater watch over serious criminals out on parole, being passed through SA's upper house, a crash into a Norwood business, then a story on impending plans for a pipeline-desalinization scheme to service outback mines heading to business case status. We open the second segment with another live cross, this time in-studio talking about Riverland farmer issues (which almost felt like a car crash) a v/o'd piece on a rejected appeal, before a full piece before sport on a murder trial.

Tonight's weather: is at the Adelaide Fringe (i.e. it'll likely be the same on Monday, as both 10/MIX are sponsors) at the Garden of Unearthly Delights, with a magician, and a poor attempt at TV magic that has been captured on social media...

We now head into sport: with a brief v/o'd piece on a finger injury to a Adelaide Crows player:

(Which was signaled by this graphics piece)

and a full story on the recruitment of a new Adelaide 36'ers coach (another exclusive for 10), but is also noteworthy for the significant improvement to Max Burford's presentation (likely helped by the fact 10 Adelaide is no longer shooting two sports segments over a ninety minute bulletin.

Overall, Adelaide's bulletin tonight (outside the Riverland CEO live cross (who genuinely looked extremely out of depth), is aiming to duplicate it's feat of August last year. A product that has improved from criticism, and is potentially the dark horse this year to take out the Content Survey Live title.

The scores:
Three local stories (less than Sydney on Monday night)
Two local sports stories (one more than both Sydney/Brisbane could muster on Monday night)
Four local v/o'd stories (equal with Sydney on Monday night)
Three live crosses (a metric Adelaide obliterated both Sydney and Brisbane on Monday night)
Using exclusivity to the hilt (two stories exclusive to 10, and using it's ace in the hole: Adelaide Fringe sponsorship, as a significant asset)
Last year: Adelaide's scores, were: Semi Final 1: 4.5/10, 4.5/10, Prelim Final: 5.5/10, 5.8/10.
For their first survey of 2024: Adelaide scored... 6.3/10.
A slight push up from the final survey in 2023, and is so far the highest score for this week.

Friday night, in Perth... will be interesting to say the least.

A Flood Of Memories: 1974 Revisited.

(thanks to some Brisbane Telegraph and Sunday Sun microfiche over at SLQ)

We open up today's chapter as a two day look over the dates 20 and 21 Feburary 1974.
We begin with a big front page story on both afternoons.
The discovery of a body in the Brisbane River (especially so soon after the receding of the 1974 flood) in the Pinkenba area makes front page news on the Wednesday. However: by the time the Telegraph was released on Thursday afternoon, the person was identified, and was beginning to be investigated into whether it had connections to a completely separate incident a week earlier (where a dock worker was shot at the Osbourne Hotel: today a expensive establishment close to the James St urban renewal success story: however, in 1974, was in the heart of a working class industrial area that was close to the wharves of Newstead and Teneriffe, that would soon lose their importance to Queensland's exports and imports, first to Hamilton: and then ultimately to the newly reclaimed Fishermans Island port at the mouth of the Brisbane River)

(20/2/1974 and 21/2/1974 Brisbane Telegraph front pages)

Meanwhile, the page 2 story on Thursday, was of those trying to make a serious go about cleaning up their houses in Rocklea: some houses were later bought out in buyback schemes post-1974 for parkland, as well as after the flood of 2011.

(Page 2, Brisbane Telegraph 21/2/1974)

The staggering totals raised in 1974 for Brisbane flood relief by the community in such a short time are astounding, even today, when inflation is taken into account.

At that time: the Brisbane Lord Mayor's relief fund, had raised over $2.6m in 1974 dollars: today that amount (with inflation, of course) is closer to $27.25m (slightly higher, than what was raised on the night from the Australia Unites effort, post 2022 Brisbane/Northern NSW flood disaster: around $25m), while a state-supported appeal had raised $2.1m in 1974 dollars: today, that amount (again, with inflation) is around $22.3m.

(Latest Brisbane flood appeal numbers 21/2/1974)

One key donation, is poignant, because it came from a soon to be deceased Brisbane retailer in a centre, fifty years on from being hosed out and recently reopened: which is now set to see it's demolition begin (after a disaster worse than 1974 affected the centre in 2022).

The hat went around at the flood-affected Barry and Roberts department store and supermarket at Toombul Shoppingtown (later home to McDonnell and East, and then got heavily reconfigured in the late 1980's with a food court and cinema complex, a Bi-Lo that became a Bunnings and ultimately part of the Upstairs dining precinct), and stumped up $107 in 1974 dollars from all the staff working there to go toward the Lord Mayor's appeal.

Today that donation amount (thanks to inflation) would have been: $1120.

And thus, we leave you with with a print advertisement from Barry and Roberts's supermarket division (with a extra emphasis on their TOOMBUL location) which shows us a supermarket lineup not quite yet fully metric (i.e. a happy housewife could get half a kilo of Vim in a can or a kilo box of Weetbix off the shelf, perhaps look at the newfangled 600ml bottle of milk in the fridge, but still struggle at the butcher or in fresh fruit/veg with ounces and pounds (something that would ultimately change as Australia's metrication effort took flight)

(Barry and Roberts advert, 20/2/1974) 

Well, that's it for tonight's edition of Content Survey Live: Tomorrow, is the first Midnight Run of the season, looking at Perth for the only time during the summer leg of Content Survey Live, while the Flood of Memories segment... I can hear a whisper in the distance: "Don't let them know yet, or I'll rip your bloody arms off".

Well, see you tomorrow night.

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