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TT’s victims and real people

Another day, another story on the 6:30 battle.

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Another day, another story on the 6:30 battle between Seven and Nine. This time, Today Tonight‘s Matt White and newly-appointed supervising producer in Melbourne John Choueifate talks up the show and its unapologetic style to The Age.

But it’s Choueifate who has the more interesting observations in the article. He points to the state of each network’s headquarters: “If you look at Seven’s Docklands facility, you see forward-thinking and state-of-the-art technology. Nine is really just a hole: the technology is just not there.”

Ouch.

“It’s about staff wanting to work for a place. Morale at Nine is rock-bottom. The reporters at Seven are hungrier; they want to be out breaking stories. Seven’s also far more advanced in the way they shoot and edit stories.

The rip-off expose is a classic example of TT style: it’s strident and pugnacious. It personalises the general.

“It’s important to get a person — a victim — because people can feel for that person,” he says. “If you’ve got a politician talking for five minutes about how they’re going to crack down on something, the viewer is going to get disinterested. They’re not going to believe the politician. People sitting at home want to hear from real people; politicians or boffins or experts can comment, but you’d rather hear from a (real) person.”

According to The Age, nationally, TT has claimed 44 weeks to ACA‘s two. In Melbourne, once a Nine stronghold, TT has had 27 wins to ACA‘s 19.

Source: The Age

7 Responses

  1. “The reporters at Seven are hungrier; they want to be out breaking stories.” That’s an odd way off putting it – I guess “breaking stories” must be some kind of commercial TV reporter-slang for “borrowing ideas for stories from the morning’s newspapers because TV journos are too lazy or clueless to do the work themselves.” Yeah, that sounds more like it.

  2. Like Bernadette I avoid both ACA & TT at .6.30pm.
    Both ACA & TT seem intent on tacky tabloid gossip,cross promotion or bickering amongst themselves.Maybe if they went back to true journalism or decent investigation stories then I might be interested.
    If I need current affairs then SBS or ABC for me.
    Both SBS and ABC treat viewers like human beings and ask legit questions and delve into the real story.

  3. He might think he’s happy being better than ACA but when they are both delivering bottom of the barrel journalism so it doesn’t say much.

    ABC and SBS lead the way in terms of quality news reporting and real current affairs shows. If I was a journalist I’d be embarassed to have ACA or Today Tonight on my resume.

  4. I couldn’t agree with you more Cameron, I too wouldn’t mind working for the Nine network, everytime I turn to Seven I see is cockiness and makes me sick just watching the station, I don’t really care about the so called State of the art quality technology, how is this relevent in helping victims? One may ask

  5. If you look at ACA and Nine News in practically all cities especially Melbourne you will find classy and attractive sets/backgrounds but go to Seven and you find plasma screens which do not appeal at all. The ABC has them(They don’t have as much money) but at least they know how to report and deliver the news properly. Nine is weaker but an attractive set and backgrounds are appealing. Seven is a hole that needs to be filled up and it will take years to restore Seven to its former self. Nine is on its way back up. Ten also have nice sets and so does the 7:30 Report.

    If I was a journalist or anybody in TV really, i would be happier at any network but Seven. Seven personalities has deserted the network this year including Shelley Craft (seems really happy at Nine), Grant Hackett , Tim Campbell and Kelly Landry. Nine is a much happier place now, I would assume. if I went there, i wouldn’t want to leave. At least they are not as ratings mad now, but they need to boost profits though making ratings just as important.

    Seven only care about ratings and have become so bad , I now watch SBS more often than Seven.

  7. Well neither show has had a win in our household and I’d rather hear from a real person in my own house than the dirt-mongers that pass for journalists on these shows. The TV is firmly in the Off position at 6:30 at our place…except for Wednesday evenings when the ABC shows The Cook and The Chef. I don’t care which station has the hungrier reporters as both TT and ACA were awful last time I checked (I did watch the new local ACA in Adelaide for about 15 minutes a couple of weeks ago but it was still the same garbage minust Ms Grimshaw) and nothing Mr Choueifate said inspired me to subject myself to another look at either show. Ugh.

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