Rival regional television networks Golden West Network and WIN Television look set to go head to head in the pivotal local evening news segment, as WIN expands its presence in major Western Australian regional centres.
Rival regional television networks Golden West Network and WIN Television look set to go head to head in the pivotal local evening news segment, as WIN expands its presence in major Western Australian regional centres.
Bunbury-based GWN, part of the Prime Television group, has been operating a local regional news bulletin for about 30 years and has a journalist and camera operator in Bunbury, Albany, Geraldton, Kalgoorlie, Karratha and Broome.
It screens an hour-long evening news service, which includes its half-hour regional bulletin and the Seven nightly news bulletin.
The major part of its program content comes through an affiliation agreement with the Seven Network.
WIN takes the majority of its programming from Seven’s main rival, the Nine network, and is a relative newcomer to the state’s regional airwaves, currently in its seventh year of operation.
To date, its evening news programming has consisted of Channel 9’s half-hour Perth news bulletin, but it is currently embarking on a recruiting drive that will replicate GWN’s coverage in regional centres.
The lack of regional content in WIN’s news programming has had an obvious impact on its ratings. According to GWN’s rating figures, its half-hour nightly regional bulletin attracted 83 per cent of viewers in the rating period for the second half of 2005.
This is a point that doesn’t sit well with WIN, and not just because of the poor figures.
WIN WA general manager Ian McRae said one of the issues confronting the network in WA was the validity of rating figures.
Up until recently, WIN WA measured ratings by way of the diary survey system. It has now come into line with the rest of the country by introducing ‘peoplemeter’ Tele-vision Audience Measurement technology, which it hopes will provide a more accurate result.
“The introduction of peoplemeters will enable us to better react to advertiser needs and our sales force will be able to provide immediate feed-back to customers,” Mr McRae said.
The ratings issue aside, it doesn’t detract from the huge task confronting WIN to claw back ground from GWN.
Not only does GWN have a consistent, long-standing local product, it is also benefiting from Seven’s recent domination of Nine in the ratings war.
Seven finished nearly 10 points clear of Nine in last week’s ratings in WA, which was beaten into third position by Channel 10.
Both networks appear bullish about their future prospects.
GWN general manager Ian Jones said the station was proud of their product and welcomed the competition with open arms.
“Competition will be good for television and good for regional WA,” he said.
Mr McRae said WIN was happy with its position as the leading producer of news in Australia and the move into regional WA was all about the right timing.
WIN was unable to provide further details or timeframes for its regional WA service.
