Seven boosts Gold Coast news coverage with 5.30 bulletin promising ‘a local service for local people’
TV viewers in the Gold Coast will have the choice between three daily news bulletins at 5.30pm following the decision by Seven to launch a local offering in the timeslot.
The 30 minute 7 Gold Coast News, presented by Rod Young, will go head-to-head with Nine’s existing Gold Coast News. The programs will also be up against Ten’s national Eyewitness News First At Five.
7 Gold Coast News, will begin on Monday July 4 from a new purpose-built studio in Surfers Paradise. Seven’s 5-6pm timeslot in the GC is currently occupied by double episodes of quiz show The Chase.
Young will present the show from Monday to Friday, with Amanda Abate reading the 5.30pm weekend bulletin.
Paul Burt, will present the Gold Coast weather forecast in addition to his regular 7 News weather segments.
Neil Warren, 7 News Director for South East Queensland said: “We are proud to be bringing the Gold Coast a quality local news service, it thoroughly deserves, seven days a week. Focusing not just on the stories of the day, but the local issues that matter to people most. A local news service, for locals, produced and presented by locals who understand the community”.
Double episodes of The Chase? Um, no. One episode of The Chase is 60mins, currently aired between 5pm and 6pm.
Because of this, I dare say there will be some slight schedule changes for Gold Coast viewers.
There is a possibility that the Brisbane-produced news bulletin that currently airs on Seven between 4pm and 5pm will segue into The Chase at 4:30pm with the newsreader saying “Time for our Gold Coast viewers to leave us now for The Chase…”
This would be identical to what the 4pm news on Channel 9 does where the newsreader says it’s time for Gold Coast viewers to leave them for Millionaire Hot Seat at 5pm, enabling their Gold Coast bulletin to be aired at 5:30pm.
And remember, Gold Coast viewers are lucky because thanks to the peculiarities of the local TV license area, if they don’t like watching local news bullletis, they can always switch over to Seven and Nine affiliates, Prime7 and NBN, that air the regular 5:30pm programming.
User ID not verified.