Whose news hits home?
Weekend bonus: a comparison between bulletins served up on rival radio stations.
On Saturday morning, I encountered a comment from a contributor to a Facebook radio group about 4BC’s 6am news, which is networked from sister station 2GB.
The commenter, Lance, noted that the bulletin began with a story about the suspension of industrial action on the Sydney train network. Not very interesting or relevant to Brisbane listeners.
I replied, and he agreed, that there was no way a similar story about Brisbane trains would ever lead a bulletin on 2GB.
So, I decided to do a comparison study between the Sydney-produced news on 4BC at 10am on Saturday, and the Brisbane-produced bulletin on the ABC at the same time.
First, 4BC. It led with US President Donald Trump doubling steel tariffs, followed by:
A weather warning for the NSW Central Coast and South East Queensland
A Bundaberg woman accused of murder and being held in custody in Brisbane being rushed to hospital
The Sydney rail strike might be over
An IPA study on whether school children should learn about climate change
Loretta Swit, star of M*A*S*H, has died
Russell Brand has pleaded not guilty to sexual assault charges in a UK court
One sentence each about an ovarian cancer study and the Aussie-US dollar rate
After some ads, there was a Brisbane traffic report.
ABC Brisbane led with the detained woman being rushed to a Brisbane hospital, then:
Arrests in Logan, Brisbane and the Gold Coast related to an alleged drug trafficking ring
Trump tariffs and Australian reaction
A Middle East expert on proposed Gaza ceasefire
Elon Musk sports a black eye at his farewell from the White House
A Brisbane man begins a cancer fundraiser.
In sport, 4BC had two non-local rugby league stories, and a report from the French Open, while the ABC had just one story, about the Matildas’ win over Argentina in a women’s soccer friendly.
So, what do we make of this?
First up, as an old newspaper editor once told me, ranking news stories isn’t a science. What one person may think is important, another may not.
Second, radio news scripts typically include filler items that may or may not make the cut, because they are working to the clock.
Third, this is hardly a scientific study, just a look at (or listen to) two bulletins that happened on rival stations at the same time. A true comparative content analysis is beyond my budget.
The ABC, in this instance, gave greater emphasis to local stories, and left out the Sydney rail story which would be of limited interest to a Brisbane audience (except, perhaps, ta listener who might be planning to travel south and catch a train).
It also had the local drug busts, which 4BC didn’t, and a nice local human-interest story.
But the 4BC bulletin — which was much denser in terms of story count — did have a relevant weather story, a health item (albeit with no useful detail) and two pieces of celebrity news that the ABC overlooked. I certainly think the Loretta Swit story deserved a place in the ABC bulletin, given its demographic.
Mister Brisbane is free to read, but if you appreciate what I’m doing here, and/or
at The Wrinkle and Radio Bert, you can buy me a coffee.
Disclosure: Brett Debritz has worked for both 4BC and the ABC in the past, and has been a guest recently on ABC Brisbane.
Good comparison and you make some valid points. My experience with syndicated news is that the city in which it originates will typically have stories like that train yarn at or near the top because it's primarily catering for its own audience. Listeners in satellite cities mightn't like it, but that's the reality of syndicated news services. TV is the same as you well know