Thirty days hath September, April, June and November.
All the rest have thirty-one, Excepting February alone,
And that has twenty-eight days clear and twenty-nine in each leap year.
Well, happy February 29...
Welcome to a day, that only comes every twenty years: February 29... falling on a year ending in "4". The next occurrence of this, is going to be in 2044. The first fixture of the second round saw Adelaide narrowly beat Sydney in a tight encounter. Tonight, Brisbane is out for it's second round: as part of a rematch with it's semi-final opponent for last year, Melbourne.
But first: let's take a look at the ground rules. That's what we normally say at this point.
Tonight will be different.
We believe, the time has come to campaign for metropolitan local news quotas in Australia to protect the choice of news on commercial FTA in the capital cities from the big risk: a duopoly in commercial FTA news (a issue which will be even more problematic in cities like Perth, Sydney and Melbourne where a print newspaper operator also runs one of the commercial TV stations in those markets). The common viewer will simply see those words... and instantly think "It won't happen here".
They said the exact same things in New Zealand: and yet, the nation's sole commercial news service (in a similar role to ITN in the UK, producing news for two of the country's commercial networks: Three and Sky Open) is set to pull up stumps come June.
And, that's in a national market with far less local TV news regulation than regional Australia.
Please make the inboxes of the federal Communications minister and shadow federal Communications minister full of fears from viewers of a commercial TV news landscape that is simply a duopoly: if events such as a news department axe is ever mooted by 10, like what is happening now across the ditch.
It'll only take one set of bad advertising figures for a network teetering over the edge, before a decision like cutting entire news divisions is even contemplated. Make your voice heard now.
Federal Communications Minister, Michelle Rowland: Michelle.Rowland.MP@aph.gov.au or through a contact form.
Shadow Federal Communications Minister, David Coleman (Contact form available here)
And, now finally, let's take a look at the ground rules.
But first: let's take a look at the ground rules. That's what we normally say at this point.
Tonight will be different.
We believe, the time has come to campaign for metropolitan local news quotas in Australia to protect the choice of news on commercial FTA in the capital cities from the big risk: a duopoly in commercial FTA news (a issue which will be even more problematic in cities like Perth, Sydney and Melbourne where a print newspaper operator also runs one of the commercial TV stations in those markets). The common viewer will simply see those words... and instantly think "It won't happen here".
They said the exact same things in New Zealand: and yet, the nation's sole commercial news service (in a similar role to ITN in the UK, producing news for two of the country's commercial networks: Three and Sky Open) is set to pull up stumps come June.
And, that's in a national market with far less local TV news regulation than regional Australia.
Please make the inboxes of the federal Communications minister and shadow federal Communications minister full of fears from viewers of a commercial TV news landscape that is simply a duopoly: if events such as a news department axe is ever mooted by 10, like what is happening now across the ditch.
It'll only take one set of bad advertising figures for a network teetering over the edge, before a decision like cutting entire news divisions is even contemplated. Make your voice heard now.
Federal Communications Minister, Michelle Rowland: Michelle.Rowland.MP@aph.gov.au or through a contact form.
Shadow Federal Communications Minister, David Coleman (Contact form available here)
And, now finally, 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, for Brisbane from last week.
Brisbane's bulletin last week, easily became the worst performer of the week, with very little substance, and absence of any real coverage of it's own market. This week, it has major gains to make before the month's break, before the solo April round of Content Survey Live.
We open up tonight's bulletin with a story and a live cross concerning a asbestos mulch crisis in Queensland, a story on the Vyleen White funeral, a voiced over piece on knife searches on public transport, a $3000 flight to Las Vegas, a Doolandella murder-suicide, and a competition to get the Wiggles to visit your kindy to promote their electrical safety initiative.
And, then there was the inevitable puff piece about Feburary 29 births and marriages.
Sport was pretty much Vegas dominant, with voiced over pieces for both Dolphins/Cowboys issues, and the QRL's season launch.
Overall: Brisbane's bulletin could well be worse than last week. Something that was very apparent from the get-go in our books.
Scores:
Three full local stories (two less than Adelaide on Monday night)
Six voiced over pieces (one more than Sydney on Monday night)
A solitary live cross (the two Vegas crosses do not count)
Sports coverage too Vegas NRL-focused. In our opinion, the Matildas slaughter of Uzbekistan last night should have rightly led the sports segment.
Last week, Brisbane scored a 2/10.
Tonight: Brisbane scored a 1/10.
Summer for 10 in Brisbane ends with a significant whimper... and a significant guarantee that Melbourne tomorrow night will walk away with the two points for this fixture. It'll be simply a matter of how much is scored by the defending champions, that is in excess of Brisbane's score tonight.
Brisbane's bulletin last week, easily became the worst performer of the week, with very little substance, and absence of any real coverage of it's own market. This week, it has major gains to make before the month's break, before the solo April round of Content Survey Live.
We open up tonight's bulletin with a story and a live cross concerning a asbestos mulch crisis in Queensland, a story on the Vyleen White funeral, a voiced over piece on knife searches on public transport, a $3000 flight to Las Vegas, a Doolandella murder-suicide, and a competition to get the Wiggles to visit your kindy to promote their electrical safety initiative.
And, then there was the inevitable puff piece about Feburary 29 births and marriages.
Sport was pretty much Vegas dominant, with voiced over pieces for both Dolphins/Cowboys issues, and the QRL's season launch.
Overall: Brisbane's bulletin could well be worse than last week. Something that was very apparent from the get-go in our books.
Scores:
Three full local stories (two less than Adelaide on Monday night)
Six voiced over pieces (one more than Sydney on Monday night)
A solitary live cross (the two Vegas crosses do not count)
Sports coverage too Vegas NRL-focused. In our opinion, the Matildas slaughter of Uzbekistan last night should have rightly led the sports segment.
Last week, Brisbane scored a 2/10.
Tonight: Brisbane scored a 1/10.
Summer for 10 in Brisbane ends with a significant whimper... and a significant guarantee that Melbourne tomorrow night will walk away with the two points for this fixture. It'll be simply a matter of how much is scored by the defending champions, that is in excess of Brisbane's score tonight.
A Flood Of Memories: 1974 Revisited.
(thanks to some Brisbane Telegraph and Sunday Sun microfiche over at SLQ)
We knew that we'd be stuck in a pickle concerning February 29: as the leap day this year, would bring our series into sync day/date with 1974: give/take a couple of double ups in the main season to make up for the lack of Wednesday posts (as you'll find out tomorrow). So, we'd thought it'd be a good moment on the last day of summer: to look back at some additional content we've discovered along the way.
And, we begin: with the cancelled concert by Rod Stewart and The Faces at the Milton Tennis Centre which was originally scheduled for January 30 1974.
As we've learned in the past: a deadline for a story in the print era may end up with articles that are out of date very quickly (for example, the regional QLD press caught on the trot in 1990: when QTV lost the Nine affiliation to WIN Queensland: a week from aggregation... just as newspapers took breaks for Christmas Day). Case in point, this preview for the Faces concert scheduled for Milton: that somehow was retained in the Sunday Sun on the 27th of January (perhaps more mistaken belief amongst some that the Brisbane River wouldn't burst it's banks (after all, 74's flood was still a evolving story on Saturday night prior to papers like the Sunday Sun printing first editions), let alone reach as far as Frew Park and the tennis centre in Milton)
(Faces concert preview)
As most famously illustrated, in colour film of the time: the Milton Tennis Centre's centre court would be completely underwater at the '74 flood's peak, and the surface was said to be 10 feet (3m) underwater, with the uncanny ability to sneak in via boat into the venue: something you wouldn't get away with in the 21st century.
(Milton Tennis Centre underwater, from The River's Rage, 1999)
Of course we all know of the story of the 26th of January: where nonstop rainfall caused significant problems, that would ultimately lead to the unthinkable on the 27th: Brisbane's CBD underwater for the only time in the 20th century: something the Sunday Sun didn't anticipate.
(Sunday Sun front page 27/1/1974)
We now fast forward seven days, the water's down, Operation Cleanup is now underway, with the original mud army making great strides. And, now we are being asked quite simply...
"GIVE. AND FOR GOD'S SAKE, BE GENEROUS".
To help speed donations, Brisbane's Sunday Sun not only offered coupons for those to send in a dollar note (1974 money: today thanks to inflation: that's a call to donate $10.50) who'd in turn donate the dollar note to the Lord Mayor's Appeal, while entering your name into a contest for a Chrysler Valiant.
(Sunday Sun front page 3/2/1974).
The biggest shock, if you were a business that had dealt with flooded businesses pre-flood in the pre-online era, would simply be published as a ad. Quite a few businesses not only saw their livelihoods wash away down the river... but all important business records: that is, for example grocery supply businesses, machining firms, even items like vacuum cleaner orders for retailers to sell had to ultimately be relodged with the business once the cleanup had been completed.
(Various business adverts, Sunday Sun/Telegraph)
And, then we come to some products that saw a silver lining from the flood situation: alongside others that would never outright happen today: reselling appliances that were immersed in water that were salvagable (a product sales concept that was not just used by the discounters: for example: Errol Stewarts, but even by companies like Allgas at South Brisbane.)
(Silver lining: adverts for Annand and Thompson truck dealers, Yates lawnseed)
(Resale of flooded appliances: Errol Stewarts, QLD Used Appliances and Allgas)
And, then there is the generosity some businesses gave to flood victims directly (help likely seen as even more gratitude due to the extensive insurance problems that happened in the flood's wake), even as houses were still being cleaned up.
(Various adverts)
And, finally: we leave you with a comprehensive guide to spotting a flooded car, especially on the used car market in the flood's wake.
(Telegraph guide to spotting a flooded used car)
We'd like to offer this dedication, at the end of the Feburary 29 lookback: to the hard working men and women who have ensured the 1974 flood story (the first major Brisbane River flood covered heavily by television) remains in our minds for our children, and our grandchildren to remember.
These include, Peter Doherty (ex-Seven, worked on the 1999 25th commemorations doco, whose experience dealing with that milestone was a vital part in having Seven tell the 2011 and 2022 flood stories the way they needed to be told), and the late Eric Gaehler (who passed away in 2015) whose two cans of 35mm colour film that was shot by him on the Australia Day long weekend 50 years ago, are today stored safely with the Queensland State Library: as rightfully, the most valuable piece of colour film of this state's history that has been ever produced.
(deep breath)
Tomorrow night, we go to Melbourne, for the first day of Autumn... and the last day of the Feburary rounds of Content Survey Live: Season Mode. That's it, goodnight...
And, finally: (It's been a long one) in the wake of this being the last night a NRL market will be surveyed before the big Las Vegas experiment this weekend, we thought it'd be wise to go for a toilet break... I mean, a accurate perception of every single NRL player in Sin City right now...
We knew that we'd be stuck in a pickle concerning February 29: as the leap day this year, would bring our series into sync day/date with 1974: give/take a couple of double ups in the main season to make up for the lack of Wednesday posts (as you'll find out tomorrow). So, we'd thought it'd be a good moment on the last day of summer: to look back at some additional content we've discovered along the way.
And, we begin: with the cancelled concert by Rod Stewart and The Faces at the Milton Tennis Centre which was originally scheduled for January 30 1974.
As we've learned in the past: a deadline for a story in the print era may end up with articles that are out of date very quickly (for example, the regional QLD press caught on the trot in 1990: when QTV lost the Nine affiliation to WIN Queensland: a week from aggregation... just as newspapers took breaks for Christmas Day). Case in point, this preview for the Faces concert scheduled for Milton: that somehow was retained in the Sunday Sun on the 27th of January (perhaps more mistaken belief amongst some that the Brisbane River wouldn't burst it's banks (after all, 74's flood was still a evolving story on Saturday night prior to papers like the Sunday Sun printing first editions), let alone reach as far as Frew Park and the tennis centre in Milton)
As most famously illustrated, in colour film of the time: the Milton Tennis Centre's centre court would be completely underwater at the '74 flood's peak, and the surface was said to be 10 feet (3m) underwater, with the uncanny ability to sneak in via boat into the venue: something you wouldn't get away with in the 21st century.
Of course we all know of the story of the 26th of January: where nonstop rainfall caused significant problems, that would ultimately lead to the unthinkable on the 27th: Brisbane's CBD underwater for the only time in the 20th century: something the Sunday Sun didn't anticipate.
We now fast forward seven days, the water's down, Operation Cleanup is now underway, with the original mud army making great strides. And, now we are being asked quite simply...
"GIVE. AND FOR GOD'S SAKE, BE GENEROUS".
To help speed donations, Brisbane's Sunday Sun not only offered coupons for those to send in a dollar note (1974 money: today thanks to inflation: that's a call to donate $10.50) who'd in turn donate the dollar note to the Lord Mayor's Appeal, while entering your name into a contest for a Chrysler Valiant.
(Sunday Sun front page 3/2/1974).
The biggest shock, if you were a business that had dealt with flooded businesses pre-flood in the pre-online era, would simply be published as a ad. Quite a few businesses not only saw their livelihoods wash away down the river... but all important business records: that is, for example grocery supply businesses, machining firms, even items like vacuum cleaner orders for retailers to sell had to ultimately be relodged with the business once the cleanup had been completed.
And, then we come to some products that saw a silver lining from the flood situation: alongside others that would never outright happen today: reselling appliances that were immersed in water that were salvagable (a product sales concept that was not just used by the discounters: for example: Errol Stewarts, but even by companies like Allgas at South Brisbane.)
And, then there is the generosity some businesses gave to flood victims directly (help likely seen as even more gratitude due to the extensive insurance problems that happened in the flood's wake), even as houses were still being cleaned up.
And, finally: we leave you with a comprehensive guide to spotting a flooded car, especially on the used car market in the flood's wake.
We'd like to offer this dedication, at the end of the Feburary 29 lookback: to the hard working men and women who have ensured the 1974 flood story (the first major Brisbane River flood covered heavily by television) remains in our minds for our children, and our grandchildren to remember.
These include, Peter Doherty (ex-Seven, worked on the 1999 25th commemorations doco, whose experience dealing with that milestone was a vital part in having Seven tell the 2011 and 2022 flood stories the way they needed to be told), and the late Eric Gaehler (who passed away in 2015) whose two cans of 35mm colour film that was shot by him on the Australia Day long weekend 50 years ago, are today stored safely with the Queensland State Library: as rightfully, the most valuable piece of colour film of this state's history that has been ever produced.
(deep breath)
Tomorrow night, we go to Melbourne, for the first day of Autumn... and the last day of the Feburary rounds of Content Survey Live: Season Mode. That's it, goodnight...
And, finally: (It's been a long one) in the wake of this being the last night a NRL market will be surveyed before the big Las Vegas experiment this weekend, we thought it'd be wise to go for a toilet break... I mean, a accurate perception of every single NRL player in Sin City right now...
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