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7TWO abandons 7pm bulletin

They began with the best of intentions but Seven & Nine no longer air 7pm bulletins on their multichannels.

Screen Shot 2014-05-06 at 12.18.30 am.jpgSeven has followed Nine by no longer airing a 7pm bulletin on its multichannel, 7TWO.

The multichannel bulletin soft-launched in August presented by Melissa Doyle, but the last bulletin aired on ANZAC Day when it rated 62,000 viewers. Bargain Hunt now airs from 6:30pm.

Doyle, who moved from Sunrise to primetime, continues with the weekday afternoon bulletin Seven News at 4, plus correspondent assignments and last night presented the 6pm News in Sydney.

A Seven spokesperson told TV Tonight the 7pm bulletin impacted on the flexibility needed for Doyle to cover other assignments.

“She’s doing more and more overseas and is a senior correspondent working hard.  So we’ve closed that bulletin down and all those resources are back in the newsroom. She has 4pm and other newsreading duties and senior correspondent stuff.

“Her role has been increasing on the road and that 7pm bulletin made it very hard.”

Recently Doyle has reported international stories including the Syrian Refugee crisis in Jordan, Schapelle Corby release in Bali, Oscars Red Carpet, Royal Baby birth in London plus Australian news including the Blue Mountains bushfires, Queensland Cyclone and Royal Tour across the country.

Nine, which also had a 7pm bulletin on GEM presented by Peter Overton, wrapped its extra bulletins last October.

13 Responses

  1. Not a major fan of Melissa Doyle as a newsreader however, she has absolutely shone recently when doing live crosses of breaking news. Her ability to ad lib is fabulous. Peter Meakin should try and lure her to Wake Up, pair her up with Matt White and sit back and watch the ratings steadily increase.

    On a side note, how much longer can 7 News Sydney afford to persist with Mark Ferguson in the chair? The ratings are spiraling out of control – nearing 150k deficit to 9 on some days. With Doyle at the desk last night 7 rated over 300k for the first time in 3 weeks and Chris Bath managed to claw back to 25k behind on the weekend. Time to admit you stuffed up 7 and reinstate Bath. But egos will never let that occur.

  2. im not surprised. She does the 4:30 bulletin, why does she need to repeat the same stuff at 7. Yes I know people work and might want to see it but you can watch the news anywhere these days.

  3. Why can’t they just be honest and admit that it wasn’t a ratings success. If Mel being on other assignments was the real problem, then wouldn’t they just give the job to another presenter?

  4. More fake news? Wasn’t needed! Seven’s news credibility is shot, especially after last nights MediaWatch and the stuff they pass off as ‘news’

  5. The 7pm Newses were a failed attempt to out flank the ABC while producing cheap content to meet the local content quota.

    And in Seven’s case, a place to park Doyle till they found something else for her to do after the tabloid melodrama of her sacking from Sunrise.

    They presumably have come up with a better low cost way of meeting the local content quota.

  6. Who could have predicted a Sydney-centric, garbage news bulletin, airing on a multichannel and up against local ABC1 and national ABC24 and SBS1 bulletins, and on just an hour after their local nonsense editions wouldn’t work? The whole world’s gone mad.

  7. Would love to see her move to Ten also, possibly to join Matt in a co-hosting role as she would be a real asset to the team there but I doubt it would ever happen unfortunately. Always thought the 7pm bulliten was a waste of time, clearly they did too.

  8. Such a nice presenter. Ten could do well to snap Mel Doyle up and put her on that dreary breakfast show, Wake Up to breathe a bit of life into it.

    That would give Seven a run for their money. For some reason, she has fallen out of favour with Seven.

    The 4pm News is a graveyard. She is too well-respected for that.

  9. am surprised 7 kept a bulletin going for so long with ratings like that. don’t understand why Mel would not be looking to jump ship. she should follow mattie white to TEN for a real shake up.

  10. Not that I believe a 7pm bulletin was entirely needed, but Seven has a wide variety of talent available to it, the unavailability of one newsreader shouldn’t impact their ability to make the bulletin. Seems like a bit of a poor excuse to me.

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