Throng Special Report: New Zealand’s Evening News Overall Coverage

Throng recently surveyed four free-to-air local news bulletins in depth over a four week period: ONE News, 3 News, PRIME News – First at 5:30 and TVNZ News at 8.

In many areas the four bulletins were very similar but there were also some surprising differences. This summary focuses on overall comparisons between the bulletins and is the second of a series of releases comparing the news bulletins over this four week period.

More after the jump »

How did the news bulletins compare for news, sport and weather coverage?

  • ONE News: 57% News, 27% Sport, 16% Weather
  • 3 News: 65% News, 25% Sport, 10% Weather
  • PRIME: 59% News, 36% Sport, 4% Weather
  • TVNZ 7: 74% News, 15% Sport, 11% Weather

How often was breaking news used?

  • ONE News: 3 times (Marie Davis case, Sinking yacht, Whangamata crash
  • 3 News: 2 times (Pizza delivery man abducted, Whangamata crash)
  • PRIME: 3 times (Bailey Kurariki released from jail, Marie Davis case, Whenuapai plane crash)
  • TVNZ 7: 0 times

Live crosses have become more common in recent times with some Throng commenters recently discussing if they are used too frequently:

  • ONE News: averaged 3.3/bulletin, maximum: 7 in a bulletin
  • 3 News: averaged 2.6/bulletin, maximum: 6 in a bulletin
  • PRIME News: only 1 in the survey period
  • TVNZ 7: averaged 1.9/bulletin, maximum: 5 in a bulletin

With recent controversies over the in-bulletin promotions for other TV shows – such as the Deal or No Deal models’ dresses story, how many TV shows did the news bulletins mention or show clips of?

  • ONE News: Agenda (5 times), Breakfast, Hannah Montana, Reluctant Hero documentary, Sex and the City and South Park
  • 3 News: 60 Minutes, Campbell Live, Home and Away (twice), Rove (twice), Kath & Kim and Prison Break
  • PRIME News: Flight of the Conchords, Oprah, Sky News, WWE Raw and Hannah Montana
  • TVNZ 7: Agenda (5 times), Close Up, The View and The Bachelor

See part one of this report focussing on sports coverage »

Data collected from 21/4/2008 – 18/5/2008. Contact us for further information.

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  • Rachel

    It’s not surprising to me that ONE News had the most weather – it’s pretty long and is spread into three parts.

    The TV shows mentioned were quite funny how there were few cross-channel shows. Agenda broke stories or was used for interview footage. There was a pretty blatant promotion for the Reluctant Hero documentary during the ANZAC day news.

  • reece_555

    I hate cross promotion of stories it annoys me, Agenda is frequently used on sunday for a news story inlcuding tonight.

  • PurpleTentacle

    Interesting read. There’s a great video on TED demonstrating the rather pathetic state of TV News. The stats pertain to the US, though I think we’d find a much similar state of affairs here…

  • moclak

    It’s interesting to see that 3News only mentioned TV3 shows whereas the other bulletins had a mix.

  • Jenna

    Id just like to have a bit of a rant about what TV3 calls breaking news!
    The first story on my prefered news,PRIME news, was a developing story about a asian girl being abducted off the street. Now PRIME news had pictures that were clealy shot maybe just under an hour before broadcast and had a detective talking at a press meeting that had being held minutes earlier aparently. Now TV3 lead with the story but some how it had turned in to a “breaking story”. They had Kate Lynch live at the scene and answered unhelpful questions from Carolyn. They also showed the same pictures of things that PRIME did but it was pitch black- like it had just been shot 5minutes ago! Whats more Kate said that police were yet to talk!!!! HELLO POLICE HAD TALKED AND EXCUSE ME THIS IS NOT BREAKING NEWS WHEN ANOTHER NETWORK LEADS WITH IT HALF AN HOUR EARLIER AND HAS MORE PREPARED THAN YOU DO!!!!!!!
    I know it sounds like im atacking TV3 but it just pisses me off how their always like leading news journalism and yet the supposed weak news programme does a better job at covering it!

  • reece_555

    One news also lead with this news and with a live cross.

  • GWEN ROBERT

    CLOSE UP TV ONE

    SADLY LIP READING IS NOT POSSIBLE FOR THE BLIND OR SIGHT IMPAIRED ON CLOSE UP.

    SADLY THE LAST WORDS IN EVERY SENTENCE ARE IN A LOWER DROPPED VOICE…NOT HEARD AT ALL BY THE HARD OF HEARING.

    DO HOPE CLOSE UP CAN BECOME MORE AVAILABLE FOR ALL BY JUST SUGGESTIONS ON THESE SUBJECTS.

    OTHERWISE ENJOY CLOSE UP. IF COULD

  • ONE
  • 2
  • 3
  • Four
  • C4
  • PRIME
  • TVNZ7
  • Maori Television
  • SKY
  • Freeview