Bruce Gordon’s WIN TV is shutting five of its regional Australian newsrooms, picking locations “based on commercial viability of funding news” there.
Staff in Albury, Dubbo, Orange and Wagga Wagga in NSW and Wide Bay – which covers Hervey Bay and Bundaberg in Queensland – have been told the cuts are effective from next Friday.
WIN says news bulletins in Queensland, Victoria and western areas of Southern NSW will be state bulletins, timed with the Ten affiliate’s move back to Nine.
Last month chief executive Andrew Lancaster (pictured) told a Senate inquiry that regional broadcasters should be allowed to pool resources in order to withstand market competition from internet sites. “You can’t get past the fact that the faster internet has brought a lot of people viewing content that isn’t ours,” he said.
“Every time you look there’s a new product on your screen, with lots of unlegislated, unrestrained competitors infiltrating (the market).” He told the Sarah Hanson-Young-chaired inquiry into media diversity that the ‘one licence one market” rule in regional Australia should be removed.
Rather than wait further for overdue legislation changes, WIN has now acted to cut costs by closing newsrooms. In a statement today it said changing content consumption habits and increased competition from digital content providers had led to a reduction in demand for local news bulletins in these regions.
“In our other markets nothing has changed. WIN remains committed to local news and content but in a regional media environment that has its challenges and faces increasing programme supply and infrastructure costs, WIN needs to continue to review its operating model to ensure the ongoing success of the business.
“WIN’s priority in the short term will be working with the staff impacted to attempt to redeploy them into other roles in the network.”
Reports suggest between 30 and 45 camera operators, editors and journalists will be affected by the cuts, which media union the MEAA indicated a “crisis that demands government intervention”. The union’s media director Katelin McInerney described it as part of “a steady ongoing decline of journalism in regional Australia”, urging local MPs and community leaders to take a stand against the cuts.
She called on the government to work with media stakeholders and local communities to “urgently develop an action plan to arrest the loss of public interest journalism and to encourage and promote the development and growth of local news media”.