Welcome to the post-season...
Welcome to the post-season, of Content Survey Live USA.
For the next four nights, you will see the four cities who've run the pools during the regular season... go at it one more time: this time against each other. The seeding goes as follows.
-Second coming into the post-season, plays tomorrow night, June 10 (Australian time).
-Third coming into the post-season, plays the night after tomorrow, June 11 (Australian time).
And finally: the cream of the crop going into post-season, gets to send this season off two nights after tomorrow, June 12 (Australian time).
And, because it's post-season, our "ad" will feature a destination not covered by our survey, kicking off with tourist trap amongst tourist traps... Wall, South Dakota.
As we reach out to the world in 2026 and beyond (a teaser for the future perhaps), we are emphasizing your safety on the internet in the age of AI. And, that is why we believe the best choice for a VPN (where you can find out the price of a glass of water at Wall Drug (note: it's actually free), or figuring out how many geegaws and whatsits your little heart desires, or just checking out pricing at Walmart/Target without leaving your house in Australia) is Surfshark VPN. A VPN can make your life a whole lot easier when organizing your next trip to South Dakota in general, perhaps so you can figure out how far you actually are from Wall, (or Australia, if reading from the US: we'll leave the shrimp out to defrost while you come across the Pacific). Follow our link, and it helps deliver better content for you, and drives the challenge home.
And, now: onto the ground rules.
THE GROUND RULES
Our focus, in Content Survey Live will be monitoring multiple news services over a significant timespan (a benefit of technological change, now allowing us to watch American news bulletins here in Australia), using a slight modification of the same criteria we used in the “Great Local News Study” from Kuttsy's Pitch XI in August, 2019 and in Content Survey Live between 2020 and 2024.
-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 and traffic reports are not counted.
-Sport stories are counted for one point if it’s a voiced over piece: but… if you have a reporter on the scene reporting on the event, it counts for two points. This sports reporting scoring system is a modified version of the “Ray Robinson Number” from the 2024 special event, and the 2025 edition of Content Survey Live, which was utilized to examine overnight news, and will be counted up at the end of the regular season as a special secondary achievement going to the market who has the highest sports score.
This number, will be named… the David Hill Number: in commemoration of the role Hill played in revolutionizing sports coverage in Australia (as VP for sport for Nine in the mid eighties), the United Kingdom (launching UK cable powerhouse Sky Sports) and in the US (the founding father of Fox Sports, whose innovations reshaped NFL and other sport coverage for the better).
In addition, all scores in 2026 will be reported in a new format: a ranking out of 10: David Hill Number (e.g. 5.8/10 and a David Hill Number of 3) rather than separating these figures out.
Chicago tonight, kicks off the 10pm news, with some big breaking news: a shooting in South Austin, followed by a live cross to Bridgeport where a vigil/bikeride took place to honour Riley O'Neill, who passed away after a tragic accident on the weekend involving a car door.
We then get voiced over pieces about a Hyde Park hit/run, the US president getting booed like the Iron Sheik at Madison Square Garden, T-Mobile celebrating a decade of T-Mobile Tuesdays, by offering gas for just $1.99 USD a gallon (equal to 74 cents AUD a litre) at a Chicagoland Shell gas station tomorrow (i.e. Tuesday) and the Paws Open fundraiser.
Alders, of course meaning aldermen, not the former Croydon department store Allders in the UK.
Although, the idea of having the word "Always Investigating" above your name as a reporter must scare a man or woman in light of recent events at CBS News, And, yes: Scott Pelley, we stand with you across the Pacific.
We now head into sport, where we prepare for interleague play in MLB, while a Cub takes out the NL's player of the week: just as Chicago brings out it's own take on the Savannah Bananas, the Chicago Snowballs, the Calder Cup finals heat up and mourning the passing of Stacey King, Chicago Bulls center, during the 1991-1993 championship dynasty, later parlaying it into a broadcast career, being the lead color commentator for Bulls games locally: including a statement on King's passing from Michael Jordan himself.
And we close tonight, with a healthy dose of health news, featuring a new youth insulin product being passed by the FDA, studies about restricting smartphone use to those above thirteen and the benefits of meditation... before coming out with a closing story that would make Beefa Bear proud: a tranquilized bear falling onto a tarp in Arizona.
and, we end with a four-shot.
Overall, what seems to be a stronger night than it's initial survey in pool 3, for the Windy City... but will it blow away the competition come Friday?
The SCORES.
Three local stories,
Three live crosses,
Eight voiced over pieces,
A far better sports segment than in it's pool appearance.
Chicago's score, to win it's pool back in early May: was 7.85/10 with a David Hill Number of 3, for a combined score of 10.85.
Tonight's score was: 8/10, with a David Hill Number of 4: for a combined score of 12.
17: Be There (1983-1986 NBC, 1984-1987 Seven Sydney), Come Home to The Best (1988/89 NBC, 1989 Seven)
The 1983/84 season for NBC was fundamental in the success that the network would gain in the years to come. And, it was all due to a philosophy change: especially in the wake of cable television’s explosive growth in the US, as laid out in a promotional briefing sometime in early 1983…
“This fall, the year ahead, I think every home in America, will want to be there.”
“Be There" is not just another slogan. It is a fundamental change in the way we promote television, and NBC. It’s no longer sufficient for us to compete with ABC and CBS, for our share of the three network audience, we’ve got to promote our product, to bring people back to our network (and cable too)”
“When we have the event, people will come to us from the other networks, and from cable. So "Be There" ushers in a whole new phase in network promotion: Event orientation in everything we do.”
Steve Sohmer, ex-CBS, kicking off his NBC run with a masterstroke (the intro to what you’ve just seen, or have had to click through to Youtube to watch).
NBC kicked the whole Be There push off over the US summer and actually got some overseas interest. Seven took up the campaign in 1984, for it’s Sydney and Melbourne stations (then still separately owned), but it lasted the longest in Sydney (as Adelaide and Melbourne started to go the Brisbane route of heavy locally skewed marketing from 1985 onward)
The 1984/85 Let’s All Be There campaign, is still seen as a halcyon campaign for both NBC and Seven (despite it only getting one city’s use here.)
“Connected to the World” in the 84/85 version has multiple meanings: NBC used viewer connections, Seven used it’s big asset on Mobbs Lane: a satellite dish… one that exposed Australian viewers to CNN for the first time (we had to learn to call it C-N-N (and it took us until 10’s Gulf War direct relay of CNN to realize it): our announcer types of the mid eighties somehow called it C double N), along with building a quiet audience in otherwise wasted overnights utilizing direct relays of the US Today Show).
But, the most important incarnation of the campaign was the one that finally kicked NBC into the #1 position in the US: one that sent the message that it would most likely be the end for the campaign… and we’d soon be witnessing the end of a forced marriage between peacock and trapezoid in favour of simplification.
NBC Let’s All Be There 1985/86.
And, a shortie version for Seven Sydney, sometime in 1986: perhaps interchanged with 30th birthday promos... done with the same zeal that soon to be Fox WTTG did in 1985.
The rights to NBC’s content in Australia during that boom period ended up being divided up: for example: The A-Team, V, and V The Series ended up with the 10’s, Miami Vice, Hill Street Blues, Cosby and Knight Rider ended up with Nine (while Cheers would end up like Murder She Wrote and Fox’s Married With Children: on both 10 and Nine by the nineties), while Seven ended up with Family Ties, The Golden Girls, and most notably: ALF (the common thread being... all half-hour products)
Seven, would return to doing a version of NBC’s promotion (this time, nationwide) in 1989. Albeit, this attempt would be of the third Come Home campaign (after lifting elements of #2 the previous year).
The Seven version is symbolic: as it was the first promo run without the coloured ring Seven since 1975: launching a new split 7 logo (inspired perhaps by WJLA in Washington), that would serve the network literally, until the end of the century.
Well, that's it for the first night of the post-season. Three more cities: Miami, San Francisco and Boston, are vying for the inaugural American champion title this week. The very chance of going head to head with Brisbane in September... is going to be tantalizing for all our competitors.
A reminder of our socials:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kuttsywoods.couch
BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/veritasonkw.bsky.social
Substack: https://veritasonkw.substack.com/
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