"Nobody's doing a high five with anyone, darling. It'll just appear that way"
For the last four nights, you will have seen 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, played two nights ago, Miami matched Chicago and slightly bettered them: with a 8.15/10, a David Hill Number of 4 for a combined score of 12.15.
-Third coming into the post-season, played last night with San Francisco, getting a 7.75/10, a David Hill Number of 4, for a combined score of 11.75.
And finally: the cream of the crop going into post-season, Boston: gets to send this season off tonight.
And, because it's post-season, our "ad" will feature a destination not covered by our survey, tonight's being none other than the city that made "Will It Play in Peoria" famous: Peoria, Illinois.
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 if a price for admission exists to the Caterpillar World Visitors Center, or figuring out if it'd be a good idea to let the Peoria Symphony play the forbidden music, 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 rural Illinois in general (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 for the last time during Content Survey Live: U.S.A: 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.
We lead tonight, with a live cross/story concerning the South Boston community rallying around children who had their lemonade stand robbed at gunpoint. This is followed by a rescue in Stoughton that sadly died on arrival at hospital, a shooting in Dorchester, the build up for the FIFA World Cup locally, including the Tartan Army making itself known in Boston.
We get a fantastic piece on the Haitian arrival into Boston for their World Cup opener against Scotland, that is being awarded two points toward the David Hill Number.
We then get stories on a recovering Lawrence police officer after a incident, bodycam footage of a parent confronting a Ipswich school principal, the kickoff of the FIFA World Cup fan festival in central Boston, (Bostonians, please explain): announcement of a sales tax-free weekend for August, a e-bike crash involving a child in Higham, a Subaru crashes into a brook in Dracut and a new exhibit for the Franklin Park Zoo.
Sport tonight, was miles better than the competition we've seen this week: with the first two points in a actual sports segment in the post-season given to the last day of Patriots pre-season minicamp (ending, just as Boston Stadium takes up FIFA World Cup duties), alongside local training camps for the French, and the Stanley Cup Final: now set for a likely Game 7, if Vegas win Game 6.
Overall, Boston tonight proved once more why it led the regular season.
THE SCORES.
One full local story,
One live cross,
Twelve voiced over pieces.
A sport segment that covered the bases and then some.
Boston won Pool 2, with a 7.65/10 and a David Hill Number of 6, for a combined number of 13.65.
The combined number Boston had to beat to win Content Survey Live U.S.A, was Miami's 12.15 earlier in the post season.
Tonight, Boston scored a 8/10, with a David Hill Number of 7, with a combined number of 15.
WBZ Boston, is officially the champion of Content Survey Live U.S.A.
Boston, in September, will face last year's Australian Content Survey Live champion, Brisbane in the first ever world championship encounter in content survey, while Miami, due to it's performance this year, will be the American reserve for a event in 2027, only if Boston loses in September.
The game is set... especially as at every corner this year... we've had one person looking on at this challenge, whilst going through the motions with the CBS O&Os, thanks to all the 10 News QLD ads filling breaks... Sharyn Ghidella.
Will Brisbane pull a stunner, or will Boston truly prove they are the one for all... That story arrives and unfolds at the same time that Australian television turns seventy.
AMERICA, YOUR SEASON LAUNCH IS READY.
A very rare occasion of a Australian network being very quick on the take-up of a new US promo, and likely because of the relationship with CBS that gave Nine access to David Letterman (as post-Nightline filler) for over a decade from early 1994 onward. For Nine, it came at the right time: a new set of station idents (the first set incidentally to incorporate NBN, now with Nine’s balls (after retiring a 20yr old logo), and the gradual WIN-efication of aggregated Australia (with VIC TV and TasTV becoming part of the WIN family in 1994), debuted in October to replace the last shades of a Australia map inspired branding that had existed in some shape or form since 1981.
For CBS, it came just as Letterman had been going gangbusters in late night, although it can also be remembered for it being the first network launch done by CBS since it’d lost the NFL and found it lucky to have lost MLB (with US baseball being on strike from mid-year onward: ultimately cancelling the 1994 World Series), seeing a significant reduction in sports output for the network.
But it had one thing going for it: the talent… so, let’s let the talent act like everyday people… thus, CBS had a “everyday people” style promo for the 1994/95 fall season.
Nine, literally got theirs produced a month after the CBS fall launch, and rather than hold out until 1995 to get these promos to air, the decision was somehow made to bring their debut forward: to November 1994 (just as the 94/95 Ashes and the World Series Cup one day cricket tournament (stupidly designed as a four way tournament, rather than the traditional 3 way set up) with Australia, Australia A, Zimbabwe and England (Australia A being there to probably make Zimbabwe look good): that ultimately ended with a Australia v Australia A final, to the chagrin of the Barmy Army) were kicking off).
The problem with this strategy sounded off very early in the piece, when Derryn Hinch left Nine at the end of Midday’s 1994 season: a event people thought at the time was the end of the line for a format that had existed in some shape or form for twenty years: to try and get a new image for the nineties (the real final hurrah, came two formats and four years later: when Kerri-Anne Kennerley said farewell in November 1998).
But, it was ripe for a comedic response.
The second season premiere for Working Dog’s Frontline (a program later exported to the US as Behind the Frontline or Breaking News) in mid-1995, effectively took the mickey out of Nine’s recent marketing campaign… with the fictional network Frontline was on, launching a “One Big Family” promotional push, complete with glossy promo (with a surprisingly similar font style… to both CBS’s and Nine’s “I Am” efforts).
A very unusually fitting end… to a season launch marathon.
Well, that’s it for Content Survey Live: U.S.A.
Now we know Boston is representing the US, in that world championship prize fight in September. Brisbane doesn’t know yet… what it’s got coming to them.
Thanks for your support with this event, this year. What we are doing next year? You’ll find out in September: right after the Content Survey Live World Championships… and, believe me: it may just be bigger: than 2026’s season… or have we just simply been dropping clues since Boxing Day whilly nilly.
(Content Survey Live engine rebooting)
116 surveys and counting. For five years it's been for Australia. In the May sweeps of 2026, it's been for America... In September... it's for the world.
A brand new look for this series debuts, with the World Championships in September... and will guide it through it's next evolution in 2027... and beyond.
The one that led the way in 2020... becomes the one to outlast them all and then some.
In addition, 24/7 week kicks off on July 1, with Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth going at it to be the #1 contender for a event next year… that is if Brisbane doesn’t win Worlds… the big catch: they’ll all be covering the same day’s news.
In addition, Brisbane will get a 24/7 piece… exclusive to Substack on the Monday afterward.
This series is one that has not relied one bit on artificial intelligence and never will. In fact, if you tried one bit to run a series like this using AI: you would openly expect it to miss some of the quirks we've witnessed throughout this year. Content Survey Live, is human powered endeavour at it's greatest: and you've just witnessed the greatest season ever, coming down to the wire in the final night of the season.
Was it fun to test myself out amongst the best the US has to offer (working with half hour news, rather than the 90min/1hr news 10's been churning out, numerous timezones and the like, including the push to turn around twenty content surveys for a 6pm posting, that may well continue into Worlds for the US element), instead of a Australian season, where you knew the traps of everyone involved?
Of course it's been fun.
America... your survey is done, and you've passed with all flags flying.
See you in September, when two Content Survey Live worlds collide, where one will come home with the right to call themselves World Champion... and the other will be left in ashes.
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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