End Of NBN News??

3May07

Rumours are circulating that PBL Media, the new owners of NBN, will be looking to rationalise costs quickly and that one of the main areas under threat is NBN’s one hour local News bulletin.

NBN’s nightly news will become a half hour bulletin at 6pm, a tipster claims today.

There will be no 5.30 bulletin. The schedule will be in sync with TCN all day.

The tipster also says National Nine News will get a revamp mid year, with a real set and new graphics, and NBN’s relaunch as Channel Nine. Call signs will be changed to allow “certain things” to take place.

NBN’s News has been a ratings winner for them since aggregation, providing the station with a nightly launching pad that Prime and SC TEN have rarely been able to threaten.

Nonetheless, the News bulletin is expensive to produce and would be an obvious target for he new owners who already have one of Australia’s largest News rooms

The possible rebranding of NBN to Channel Nine make would be a logical one for PBL who would then have continuous branding from Sydney to Brisbane.

What will be interesting though is the reaction of the local market who would lose yet another localised News service (after the closure of the Prime News room about 6 years ago). The Hunter market would then have no local television news and will have lost the original television brand the region has always known.

The big question would then be how much effect these changes would have on NBN’s ratings? NBN has continued to rate much higher than the Nine Network nationally, especially this year when Nine’s programming is very much under threat. These high ratings are generally on the back of the strong News audience.

Prime and Sc Ten might be rubbing their hands together at the latest developments.

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