Upon the examination of the galaxies of space, images begin to appear: images of strange and powerful forces, but of all the forces: two titans of two different worlds of content survey finally collide. The spirit of ’76 that still lives in the blood of Boston and Massachusetts, the spirit that tossed tea overboard and sparked a revolution on one side of the world. On the other: a spirit forged from convict sweat and blood, a little rough around the edges: who deserves it’s day with democracy concerning a event it had no say on at all: a moment that should equal to Boston’s “Tea Party” in political folklore. Long the laughingstock, Brisbane stepped up in 2025 to win… and now faces the world.
Title versus title. The inaugural Content Survey Live champion of the US… faces off against the reigning Content Survey Live champion of Australia for the first time in history. The loser will be in ashes. The winner will proudly claim themselves as a world champion.
Welcome to the first ever world championship… in content survey.
Welcome, to Night 1 of a best of five night series, where the winner of Content Survey Live U.S.A. faces off against the winner of 2025’s Australian Content Survey Live season. Due to issues concerning timezones: the average night in this survey event, stretches for almost twenty four hours, always kicking off in Australia at dinnertime, and inevitably ending with America’s late night news (about 18 hours after the Australian bulletin ends). You won’t know the result fully for each night… until the US checks in their survey.
We now must remind you (and in the case of Brisbane: explain) the ground rules for the 2026 Content Survey Live season.
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 the 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, is known as 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.
Now let’s look at the tale of the tape for the Australian Content Survey Live champion:
Well, that's it for the first part of Game 1, of the inaugural Content Survey Live World Championships.
The second part should be up by 6pm tomorrow night (the same timeslot all American surveys have run in 2026), and we'll have a winner for the first game in a best of five series.
See you then.
TALE OF THE TAPE: BRISBANE.
The long-time loser of Content Survey Live in Australia finally turned up their A-game in the 2025 edition of Content Survey Live, after the much publicised return home for 10’s news to Brisbane in September 2024. Brisbane, easily took out the main season, before playing on a similar format to the World Championships, to clean-sweep Melbourne in three nights to take home the Content Survey Live: Yesterday’s Hero crown. But, it has not been sitting comfortably on it’s laurels awaiting it’s American opponent. In fact, it is likely now the best presented bulletin in the country for Ten, despite the investments in VR/AR in Melbourne, and to a lesser extent in Perth. In fact, when we did the 24/7 event earlier this year: a event Brisbane was not in competitively due to it’s upcoming Worlds prize fight: it still got surveyed: and would have likely taken the title home, finishing ahead of the winners of 24/7: Adelaide by a clear margin. Tonight kicks off the hardest challenge: being not just compared with Australian news… but compared with America, bulletin… to bulletin.
It is now time, for Brisbane to take the field of Content Survey Live battle for the first time in eighteen months, for the first time ever: also representing it's country. Please rise, for the Australian national anthem... for the working class man.
It is now time, for Brisbane to take the field of Content Survey Live battle for the first time in eighteen months, for the first time ever: also representing it's country. Please rise, for the Australian national anthem... for the working class man.
We kick off the Brisbane return to Content Survey Live, with a bold return to ninety minute news: although now with Josh Adsett at the wheel in Brisbane it's no longer the bloated mess it was when it was still presented out of Sydney.
We kick off tonights bulletin with a couple of national stories, but with the first significant local story tonight being the funeral of former QLD Police Commissioner Steve Gollschewski at City Hall (the 5pm cut, wouldn't go out of place in any US DMA within the top 10-15 (it's opponent at the World Championship is the 10th largest Nielsen market in the US), while the 6pm cut was smart), while there were no less than three live crosses in that segment (with one of those, becoming a full story after 6pm) a dedicated federal parliament cross, a GC cross and one from parliament and two voiced over pieces (car flip at Underwood and Brisbane ferry dispute (replayed after six).
Segment 2 delivers a Seaworld rescue piece that isn't just PR footage slapped together for a story (a sharp quality increase from even 2025 (with parts reused post-6pm as a voiced over piece), while Segment 3 delivers a story on QIMR Depression research and the Quilpie Rodeo.
In addition, post 6pm got two more live crosses (Glenfield Beach shark attack in WA, local take on excise changes) and one more voiced-over piece, about a hospital marriage proposal.
Sport tonight delivers all the meat but no sandwich, in light of the Dolphins shocking run at a prelim final: NRL piece focused heavily on the two sides fighting for plane tickets this weekend (likely to be outshone by the Warriors attempt to sell out Eden Park), along with a sports reporter showing his face before stuffing it, at the Broncos season wake... I mean end of year presentation (2 pts for the David Hill Number), and a Hawks-focused piece on the Lions prelim: a chance to equal the run the Leigh Matthews era delivered (four straight GF appearances, and a threepeat from 01-03) while the rest of the sports segment after those stories leaned very heavy into the overseas sporting pool and scored nul points towards David Hill.
The 6:20 sports rundown (now blended with the former 5:55 weather) all contained repeats from the 5:45 window.
In addition, a locally re-cut piece from CBS Sunday Morning on AI made the bulletin, while a Melbourne supplied piece about movie attendances smelled far more like a advertorial for Palace Cinemas: who incidentally, have a cinema in the same building 10 Melbourne is based in: Como Centre, on Toorak Road South Yarra.
We kick off tonights bulletin with a couple of national stories, but with the first significant local story tonight being the funeral of former QLD Police Commissioner Steve Gollschewski at City Hall (the 5pm cut, wouldn't go out of place in any US DMA within the top 10-15 (it's opponent at the World Championship is the 10th largest Nielsen market in the US), while the 6pm cut was smart), while there were no less than three live crosses in that segment (with one of those, becoming a full story after 6pm) a dedicated federal parliament cross, a GC cross and one from parliament and two voiced over pieces (car flip at Underwood and Brisbane ferry dispute (replayed after six).
Segment 2 delivers a Seaworld rescue piece that isn't just PR footage slapped together for a story (a sharp quality increase from even 2025 (with parts reused post-6pm as a voiced over piece), while Segment 3 delivers a story on QIMR Depression research and the Quilpie Rodeo.
In addition, post 6pm got two more live crosses (Glenfield Beach shark attack in WA, local take on excise changes) and one more voiced-over piece, about a hospital marriage proposal.
Sport tonight delivers all the meat but no sandwich, in light of the Dolphins shocking run at a prelim final: NRL piece focused heavily on the two sides fighting for plane tickets this weekend (likely to be outshone by the Warriors attempt to sell out Eden Park), along with a sports reporter showing his face before stuffing it, at the Broncos season wake... I mean end of year presentation (2 pts for the David Hill Number), and a Hawks-focused piece on the Lions prelim: a chance to equal the run the Leigh Matthews era delivered (four straight GF appearances, and a threepeat from 01-03) while the rest of the sports segment after those stories leaned very heavy into the overseas sporting pool and scored nul points towards David Hill.
The 6:20 sports rundown (now blended with the former 5:55 weather) all contained repeats from the 5:45 window.
In addition, a locally re-cut piece from CBS Sunday Morning on AI made the bulletin, while a Melbourne supplied piece about movie attendances smelled far more like a advertorial for Palace Cinemas: who incidentally, have a cinema in the same building 10 Melbourne is based in: Como Centre, on Toorak Road South Yarra.
Overall, Brisbane is showing why it's the best in Australia, even with a extra thirty minutes tacked on: although the significant commercial break between the end of the 5:45 sports window and the kickoff of the 6pm segment left a lot to be desired.
The scores:
Five local stories,
Five live crosses,
Four voiced over pieces,
Sports segment great, until you get to the heaping overseas angle after story three, that earned a David Hill Number of 4.
The score tonight for Brisbane... in Game 1, of the World Championships: 7/10, with a David Hill Number of 4, for a combined score of 11.
The big question: could Boston make it over the line: for bragging rights, especially as it only needs to score 5 points on the David Hill Number, and pull above 7/10 to win.
In this event, the combined score may well matter.
The scores:
Five local stories,
Five live crosses,
Four voiced over pieces,
Sports segment great, until you get to the heaping overseas angle after story three, that earned a David Hill Number of 4.
The score tonight for Brisbane... in Game 1, of the World Championships: 7/10, with a David Hill Number of 4, for a combined score of 11.
The big question: could Boston make it over the line: for bragging rights, especially as it only needs to score 5 points on the David Hill Number, and pull above 7/10 to win.
In this event, the combined score may well matter.
Well, that's it for the first part of Game 1, of the inaugural Content Survey Live World Championships.
The second part should be up by 6pm tomorrow night (the same timeslot all American surveys have run in 2026), and we'll have a winner for the first game in a best of five series.
See you then.
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