60 Years of QLD TV

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Monday, February 26, 2024

Content Survey Live: Season Mode: Round 2: Night 1: All My Rowdy Friends Want To Watch Burford On Monday Night.

 It's Monday night before midnight, and it's time for Boots 'N All...
Wait: not Boots 'N All: but the Hometown Rule...


Welcome, to the first post of the second week of this year's Content Survey Live.
Last week, we had a three way tie for first place. This week, we have Perth on a bye, and the first appearance this season of Melbourne (at the business end of the week).

However: the Hometown Rule, has struck gold this week: with Adelaide set to open the week, one consisting of rematches from last year's semi finals: Adelaide and Sydney duking it out over Monday night's news, and Brisbane and Melbourne duking it out at week's end.

As we always do here: Let's take a look at 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, something we ran last Monday: analysis of story order from Sydney bulletin's 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 from last Thursday from Adelaide.
Last week, Adelaide did something unthinkable: it ranked as the highest score for the week across all four surveys for the very first time. This week, we arrive into another week, potentially more fun at the Fringe... before Adelaide gets a lucky break: a bye in April... to come into May with sheer momentum.
Let's get ready... to content survey!
We open tonight's survey, with a live cross, concerning a peak hour shooting in Wayville: which led into a standalone story, followed by a story on a firebombing in North Adelaide, we then get a obviously pre-shot story about the Adelaide Money Game (where a anonymous person hides money and posts the location on TikTok), before another live cross: this time to the Big Shed craft brewery, before a voiced-over piece about a recent fire in Smithfield Plains, a full story about a student run over in Fullerton and a ship visit for HMAS Diamantina as part of Navy Week.

Tonight's sport has achieved a trifecta: local spin on the Captains Call in Melbourne today, a live cross concerning a impending Power suspension over a headknock, and a voiced over piece about new management at SA Cricket.
Tonight's weather is again at the Fringe, albeit this time previewed with a snack.

Although personally: I'd have preferred the George Donikian method.



Overall, 10's Adelaide news may well have matched the efforts of last week... something for all to follow.
The scores:
Five local stories,
A trifecta of sports stories (a live cross, a v/o'd report and a dedicated story on the Captains Call)
Two live crosses within the body of the bulletin
A solitary voiced over piece.
Last Thursday, Adelaide scored: 6.3/10.
Tonight: Adelaide scored: 5.8/10.


A slight drop from last week, but significantly healthier than last year.


A Flood Of Memories: 1974 Revisited.
(thanks to some Brisbane Telegraph and Sunday Sun microfiche over at SLQ)
We open up today, with the front page of Feburary 25, 1974.

This date, is significant in more ways than one: as it is the Monday after, a very significant step in Brisbane's 1974 flood rebound: the reopening of the Milton Tennis Centre, finally resuming it's concert season post-flood with Elton John (in his first Brisbane outdoor concert, the previous tour he ran Festival Hall in the CBD: Queenslanders would have to wait nearly 25 years for his second outdoor concert in Brisbane proper: QEII at Nathan in 1998, and another 25 years after that for his last: Suncorp Stadium in 2023, notable for it being Elton's last ever Australian performance, in a venue under a mile from the site of the former Milton courts that he played in February 1974.

Meanwhile, Brisbane is gearing up for teen pandemonium (with a generation who'd later grow up to be the grandparents of those who attended the Taylor Swift concerts in Sydney and Melbourne earlier in 2024) come March '74: with the next big act to take the court at Milton: teen idol, and star of the Partridge Family TV series: David Cassidy, with articles flooding papers about Cassidy in their droves.

And, now finally: to the front page!
Two big stories here: first is the plan for a separate Country Party senate ticket instead of a joint Liberal/Country senate ticket in Queensland (potentially early seeds of division between the QLD Liberals and soon to be QLD Nationals (post rebrand from the Country Party), that hit flashpoint in 1983) and a short piece (or should we say slice) from a theft at the Mt Gravatt Pizza Hut of $894 (in 1974 dollars: around $9,360 today thanks to our old friend inflation) at 1am in the morning.
But, one other thing stands out: a new university student on her first day of class, (unknowing at the time) within ten years would become a pioneer in her own right.
That student, is none other than Janne Rayner, who, by the time the mid 1980's rolled around (and the tenth anniversary of 1974's flood), would become a journalist working at Seven News in Brisbane... at their ratings peak.

(Front page Telegraph, 25/2/1974)
Meanwhile, a letter to the editor suggested a fantastic idea: the possibility for Australian stamps to charge a levy for flood relief, matching similar ideas elsewhere in the world. The concept was ultimately never taken up by the Australian Post Office, which was still also the telephone operator for Australia... (itself preparing for a split within twelve months: into two businesses: Australia Post, and Telecom Australia).

(Letter to the Editor 25/2/1974)

Well, I hope you are enjoying this series so far. Tomorrow night, is the Sydney news service's second straight Monday night of survey.

See you then!

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