10’s reality show is on the move, and it will be longer too.
EXCLUSIVE: BIG BROTHER moves to Brisbane | MEDIA McKNIGHT
10’s reality show is on the move, and it will be longer too.
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In this edition of Media McKnight:
- Big Brother Moves to Brisbane
- NBN News Gutted by WIN
- Radio Exec Stood Down for Groping
- Mildura & Geelong Radio Ratings with Spencer Howson
You can watch the video edition of MEDIA McKnight in the player below:
BIG BROTHER’S NEW HOME
Channel 10’s Big Brother is on the move.
There have been rumours the show is leaving Dreamworld due to a conflicting booking at the Convention Centre, and that is absolutely true.
Media McKnight can reveal the show is moving to Brisbane and will air around the same time as last year, but will go a week longer this time.
There’s a lot riding on this season of the show with Channel 10 putting a lot of its eggs in the Big Brother basket, after cancelling a string of shows, the most recent being I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here.
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And yes, that was revealed here first.
At the Screen Forever conference earlier this year, 10 Executive Sarah Thornton reinforced the need for the show to be live and not just available on one platform, saying:
“It was still the most-streamed show on 10 streaming of the year. And it’s worth saying that it’s not that Gen Z didn’t find it on linear TV either. You know, we still won 16 to 39 and 25 to 54 demos. So they were there.”
“The other thing that’s worth saying is it works so well for Big Brother because the point of the show is that it’s a national conversation. Can you have a national conversation these days if you only exist in one place? You probably can’t.”
And she’s right.
What 10 did so well here was allowing the livestream to be available on platforms like TikTok – it didn’t just limit itself to the Channel 10 platforms.
It’s a strategy backed up by Director of Content at Endemol Shine, Amelia Fisk:
“It was about just creating awareness and capturing an audience and then pushing it back to the daily show to broadcast and every decision and strategy around that was to kind of push back into broadcast.”
While this year the season will only be a week longer, I think it’s fair enough to assume a much longer season next year, especially if this one is as successful as last year.
WIN TAKES THE AXE TO NBN
When Nine Entertainment sold regional station NBN Newcastle to WIN TV last month there were fears the deal would weaken one of Australia’s last truly local TV News services.
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As Kevin Perry at TV Blackbox wrote at the time:
“NBN’s local bulletin has historically focused heavily on regional stories, local emergencies, community events and issues directly impacting audiences across Northern NSW. In many communities, it remains one of the few genuinely local media outlets still operating at scale.
“The fear now is that WIN may eventually dismantle that structure in pursuit of operational efficiencies.”
Well, it seems Kevin was right
WIN has announced the local NBN news service is being cut to just 30 minutes and will soon air at the new time of 5.30pm, followed by the Sydney edition of Nine News.
This would follow the programming strategy of WIN News, which airs in the same timeslot Monday to Friday.
The weekend edition is being axed entirely and there will be job losses, although the network hasn’t revealed how many people will be affected.
In a statement, WIN Network Chief Executive Andrew Lancaster said:
“The changes to our weeknight bulletins are designed to deliver more local content, more local stories and a stronger connection to the communities we serve across Northern New South Wales”.
Get your hand off it, Andrew.
Don’t feed us spin and expect us to swallow it. You’re doing it because you have to.
Television is struggling, and I understand you have to bring down operational costs. It was obvious that this was always going to happen with NBN.
But don’t tell us you’re doing more local content when you’re literally taking away weekend news services.
You’re reducing the bulletin from an hour to half an hour.
And yes, the one-hour bulletin wasn’t all local stories – it also contained national and international stories that were supplied by TCN in Sydney.
I get all that.
But the fact is, with these changes, you don’t need as many staff, and you are not producing as many hours of local news.
Treat the viewers with respect. Just be honest and say this is about sustainability.
Make the case that you can’t keep going if we stick to this model. You need to make these changes to make sure that the people of Newcastle can have local news into the long term, which is something WIN does believe in. I know that.
Just don’t feed us this crap that you’re delivering more local news.
You’re not.
PLEASE HELP
I have a personal favour to ask – does anyone know where I can get a DVCAM player fixed?
I wouldn’t usually ask something like this, but I’m really at a loss where to go.
It’s a second-hand DSR-1500, which I just bought and it’s coming up with two error messages:
There’s no tape stuck inside, so it’s not related to that.
Is this something that can be easily fixed, or do I need to ship it back to Japan?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Please contact me at [email protected] or DM me on social media.
THAT GUY IS AN (ALLEGED) GROPER!
Radio executive Guy Ashford has been stood down after allegedly groping an employee at last week’s Audio Awards.
Mediaweek reports the incident happened during the acceptance speech of Cheralyn Darcey for the best Newcomer award.
Darcey hosts The Nightline on 2HD.
There were gasps in the audience when Cheralyn Darcey was allegedly groped on stage
Video of the incident has since been shared online and can be seen in the video version of this article in the player above.
It’s genuinely shocking stuff.
The sad part about all this is the impact it’s had on Cheralyn Darcey.
When contacted by The Daily Mail, the radio host was reluctant to speak about the matter,
“I don’t really want to talk to anybody,
“It’s wrecked my award, that’s all. I really don’t want to make any statement. I just can’t.
“I’ve worked all my life for this. I feel like people just think I’m a joke now.”
Cheralyn, I’m genuinely sorry you feel that way – but that’s not how people are looking at you.
People are confused as to why you were treated this way and why on Earth this guy though doing that to you was ok.
It will be very surprising if he survives this – in fact there will be outrage if he does.
But legendary Brisbane radio presenter Spencer Howson believes he will survive. Speaking to Media McKnight, Howson says there is a history of men who behave badly continuing without consequences.
“Chris Smith lost his job at Nine Radio some years ago after an incident at the Christmas party and lost his Sky News job as well. He’s now back on air, same network by the way and, he won an award as well last Thursday night. And I know a lot of people are saying, how the heck did he, was he not completely erased from Australian radio? How did he come back from that?”
For me the difference here is Smith took responsibility for his actions, stopped drinking and has slowly rebuilt his career. He did suffer consequences (whether you think he suffered enough is another matter altogether).
Ashford has issued a private apology, but I don’t believe that will be enough to allow him to keep his job.
And it shouldn’t be enough.
LOCAL RADIO ON TOP
Spencer was actually joining me to talk local radio ratings – specifically Mildura and Geelong – which were published recently.
Looking at station performance in Mildura:
Triple M Sunraysia has come out on top with a 30.2% share. That’s a massive increase of 10.6%.
Hit99.5 was close behind on 29.1.
Then it’s daylight, followed by River 1467 on 15 and ABC Mildura on 8 percent.
Triple J lost 4.8% for a 4.4. share
In breakfast It was a rinse and repeat with Triple M on 31.6% – an increase of 11.2.
Hit 99.5 had to settle for second on a 30 share, down 4.8%.
River 1467 was a long way behind on 14.4, but did take third place.
ABC Mildura dropped 2.4% for a 8.8% share.
And Triple J was on 4.4% after losing 3.9% of the audience.
The fantastic results for local radio in Mildura tell a very different story to Mount Isa, which we covered recently on Media McKnight.
“Hit had a very successful survey there despite its breakfast show coming from the Gold Coast and beating the local stations. I fully expected the same in Mildura,” explains Howson.
“In the past, the last survey here (in Mildura in 2023), you did have that situation where the number one station was HIT… the breakfast show came from Albury. Now the breakfast show on hit comes from Hobart.”
“The Triple M breakfast show has stayed local and we’ve had this situation where, stations overall, but also breakfast, Triple M is number one. And people who are for live and local radio and believe that radio has to be and is at its best when it’s live and local, it’s a win.”
I asked Spencer whether localism was the main driver for consumers or whether it comes down to simply having a better show.
“Triple M breakfast, a bloke called Mattman could not be more local. Everyone around here knows him.
“So I’ve been here for the last four days interviewing listeners and people who don’t listen to radio. Whether they listen to Mattman or not, everyone knows him. And he’s extraordinarily local, talks a lot about local sports, interviews local politicians.”
So, Mattman is number 1 – but is that because he’s local or because he has a better show?
It’s something Spencer is investigating as part of his PhD as he travels the country talking to listeners.
We await the results.
LOCALISM ALSO (SEEMS TO BE) WORKING IN GEELONG
Here are the latest results in Geelong, and there is good news for local programming.
K rock is number one on 17.8%, an increase of 4.9%.
Bay 93.9 came in second on 17.1, an increase of 5.3%.
ABC Melbourne drew an 8.4% share.
Triple J came in fourth place with a 4.8% share.
And ABC Radio National made the top 5 with a 2.4% share.
In breakfast:
K rock was also in top place with an 18.7% share after a 7.3% rise.
Bay 93.9 also increased its audience for a 16.7% share.
ABC Melbourne was on 8.2%.
Triple J lost audience but drew 5.2% of the audience.
And ABC Radio National had a slight gain for a 3.4% share.
K rock and The bay are stablemates and the Quarter Hour podcast spoke with Bay 93.9 music director Guy Mylecharane about the result.
Guy Mylecharane: We are stoked. A good result for local radio as well. Like yeah, we’ve all put in a lot of hard work. I mean, I know everyone says that for a survey, but we really have and yeah, we are absolutely stoked.
Liam Renton: Let’s talk a bit more about that survey for a minute. What, what’s working, do you think, for Geelong Broadcasters? What, what’s the secret sauce?
Guy Mylecharane: Being local, being connected and just really being Geelong loudly and proudly. Like Geelong again is an interesting market because you’ve got people that have grown up here, but then you’ve got a lot of people that are moving from Melbourne escaping the rat race.
Guy Mylecharane: You’ve sort of got that mix of people that have grown up here. So, you wanna service them and make sure that they’re local, but you don’t wanna alienate them with things from the 80s that people who haven’t grown up here that don’t actually know about.
But Spencer points out these results are not quite as clear cut as they appear to be, saying:
“The Melbourne stations are not reported in the Geelong ratings. If you putvthe local stations there together, it comes to about 35%. So, there’s about 65% that is not local and that includes Triple J, Radio National, Classic Affairs, ABC Melbourne.”
“There’s still about 47% missing. Where’s 3AW?”
3AW being the number 1 station in Melbourne and it’s signal reaches the Geelong market but isn’t counted in these results.
As Spencer explains:
“I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s actually the number one station in Geelong, but we’re not gonna know that because it’s not in the interest of the stations that are selling advertising in the Geelong market for anyone to know how successful 3AW is doing that.”
It’s an issue fill-in host Liam Renton did raise with Mylecharane:
Liam Renton: Mate, correct my math, but the 47% unaccounted for in that survey, what’s your take on that?
Guy Mylecharane: Uh, well, 51% of local people are tuning into Geelong local radio, whereas, last survey that number was a fair bit lower. So, I think we focus on the growth and look at the positives.
Liam Renton: Oh, it’s absolutely positive. But where, like, where do you reckon they’ve gone then? Obviously, Melbourne stations is the only other place they’d get their radio listening, wouldn’t that be the case?
Guy Mylecharane: Possibly. Like it’s, it’s a scattergun approach. Maybe it could be online as well. We’re not sure, but yeah, I think we’ve got to focus on where the local audience is coming from. But I’d say if they are Melbourne stations, the, uh, other percentage that’s left over, they’d only be little bits and pieces of each, so I don’t think there’s one Melbourne station dominating over the local ones.
One to keep an eye on.
My thanks to Spencer for reporting in the rain from Mildura – he went above and beyond.
Media McKnight is published on YouTube every Tuesday at 8pm AEST nat YouTube.com/@McKnightTonight.
The article goes live on the TV Blackbox website every Wednesday morning.
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