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WIN Tasmania axes weekend News

WIN Television is axing its weekend news service in Tasmania fronted by the state's longest-serving news presenter, John Remess.

WIN Television has confirmed it is axing its weekend News service in Tasmania.

ABC Online reports the weekend news reader position, currently held by news veteran John Remess will be cut and at least one camera operator in Launceston will also be made redundant.

Remess is Tasmania’s longest serving newsreader, having moved to WIN Television back in 1992 from the ABC. He started in television with the ABC in 1970 and read his first bulletin for the national broadcaster in 1974.

He made the switch from weeknight to weekend news in April 2010.

At the time WIN Tasmania General Manager, Greg Rayment, said: “John is an integral part of the WIN family and we are delighted that he will continue to present WIN News to our substantial weekend audiences.”

The current restructuring of the News service is said to be in line with measures being taken in other states.

22 Responses

  1. gee,thanks,.,.now the WIN ,tasmanian news contains’nothing’ local. even the weather varies.. why not put on yet another repeat of ‘two and a half men’,instead of the news..WIN-or ‘loser’

  2. this is a disgrace we already know we are going backwards rather than “moving forward”,and now we cant get our state news,events,community concerns /activities covered and keep is informed and i miss our more professional news readers

  3. Northern Tasmania used to get Melbourne’s Nine news for a time in the past.

    But yeah I emphasise with Tasmanians about the lack of relevancy.

    It may also be worth noting that Darwin viewers get Melbourne news on Seven and Ten, and Sydney news on Nine on weekends. Eastern and central remote area viewers get Brisbane and Melbourne news on different channels.

  4. Tasmania is too small to be a viable state. They should be merged into Victoria, so getting Nine news from Melbourne is a reasonable first step towards this.

  5. Population of Tas. is 500K+. What’s the population of Canberra? Is Canberra news next? That would be fatal as there would then be no local news from Canberra, other than the ABC.

  6. @Ben- “but while somewhere like Newcastle who gets the Sydney feed”. NBN Newcastle has always produced its own world/national/local news program, using Nine exchanges, since its first day on-air. In the 70’s before microwave links, a videotape used to be roaded to Newcastle every afternoon. One hour 6-7pm M-F, half-hour at weekends. They don’t take Nine’s 11am News. But things could change now that NBN is Nine O&O.

  7. I’m surprised this happened!

    If you compare WIN Tas with other regional markets, you’ll know that other weekday editions of WIN News are *full* local bulletins, all produced & presented by WIN News staff. WIN News from Hobart is a *hybrid* local bulletin that supplements their stories with half their content coming from Nine News reports. Knowing that Tasmanian reporters were spreading their content more thinly over seven-days in a week, I would’ve thought that the cost of producing WIN News Tas was about the same as other regional markets?

    That said, Nine News/WIN News (Tas)/NBN News has been getting dumber every year to the point that ‘news’ being in their title is getting laughable. Just stick with local ABC News at 7pm…

  8. @Andrew & @Steve Population of Hobart is 250,000, population of Tasmania is 500,000+

    This is ridiculous for all of us here at Tasmania, we will get stuck with channel 9 news from Melbourne, having no local content whatsoever. It’s easy for all of you to say “all other regional areas do it”, but while somewhere like Newcastle who gets the Sydney feed will still have news that relates to their state, here in Tassie we will get Melbourne news which has nothing to do with Tasmania. Tell me how this is fair? Once again Hobart and Tasmania gets treated like we don’t exist

  9. Its been reported in The Mercury (Hobart Newspaper) that the Channel9 Melbourne news buliten will be replacing the WIN bulliten on weekends, a Launceston based camerman has been sacked and two vacancies will now not be filled. What I don’t understand is if they are behind in the ratings for news then why are they ripping the local newsroom to shreds???, Swapping local content with Melbourne bullitens and sacking local talent isnt going to go down well with Tasmanian viewers.

  10. And aren’t the “news updates” on regional TV stations a joke!

    Read by clowns who are still in short pants and curls.

    Prime and Southern Cross TV (Newcastle feeds) look like they’re compiled and presented by pre-schoolers.

    And the digital antenna guy this week looked at me strangly when I said we wanted preference given for Sydney TV stations!

  11. @Steve: Hobart (or the Tasmanian market) is included in the regional market surveys same as the regional aggregated markets in VIC, NSW/ACT and QLD. It’s just that those survey results aren’t as well circulated as OZTAM.

    And at 450k population for Tas (or 200k for Hobart), it does not come anywhere near comparison to the major metropolitan markets (all 1m and above) that are covered by OZTAM.

  12. Its not much of a surprise to me. WIN news rates very poorly against the local Southern Cross news. I wish they would axe the lady that reads the news for them during the week. She is just terrible, her speech doesnt flow nicely at all, pausing at all the wrong spots in a sentence. Its almost like she is reading it all for the first time too. She either is no good at reading a teleprompter or whoever writes for her does a bad job.

  13. I think people are forgetting that Nine News’ 6pm bulletin doesn’t air in Tasmania at all. WIN News Tas has combined national and local content. Losing weekends is huge as it’ll mean no local relevancy at all on the weekends. At least in other WIN markets, the weekend Nine News bulletin has stories that are relevant to the state.

  14. The Capital updates are ridiculous. Cover the news, sport & weather in 20 seconds so they don’t have to pre-empt too much commercial time in the TEN-dictated commercial break. The Prime “updates” more often than not feature items 2 or 3 days old in their 30-seconds. Guess that happens if the “Illawarra Mercury” arrives late in Canberra some days.
    At least the WIN NSW News is current (even if some bulletins are recorded at 2pm). Better that than nothing, as with local Capital and Prime.
    Remember when the ABC used to run “Local News” bulletins at 6:55pm?

  15. WIN Wollongong cut their local Sunday evening news when they went to agregation decades ago. Now they have cut all local regional news on public holidays. Also, they have their own “holidays” where they just present one “state-wide” (as in NSW/ACT) bulletin.
    When the costs of more digital channels are forced on regional operators something has to give.

  16. WIN in Tasmania still had a weekend edition? WIN in NSW hasnt had one in years. But its still good to see at least one regional network still has a weeknight edition. Not sure how long this will last though. Capital and Prime just do the occasional news update in accordance with ACMA regulations.

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