Nine is overhauling the production of its news and current affairs in a move that will see around 20 roles made redundant.
The ‘Future News’ project, which began around a year ago, will cut more than 120 legacy systems across Nine’s national TV network into three bespoke cloud based systems; the video editing software Adobe Premiere Pro, publishing platform Mimir and story and workflow program Saga.
Nine will reduce its job titles to a handful of roles, including multimedia journalist, story editor, digital story editor, rundown editor, chief of staff, graphic designer, camera editor, senior video editor and media enrichment technician.
Nine executives consulted NBC Universal, RTL and GB News to learn more about how to reach audiences more efficiently.
The aim is to make Nine’s news and current affairs output more accessible to audiences outside of flagship 6pm bulletins, which are watched by 1.5-2 million viewers each night.
For example, when Prince Andrew was arrested over the Epstein files in the UK, and Aussie audiences were asleep, Nine published a Prince Andrew documentary called ‘The Reckoning’ on YouTube that had 2.5 million views before Australian audiences had woken up.
Over the next month, Nine will be consulting teams in its Sydney news and video content team, the Today Show, Canberra and foreign bureaus.
This will eventually be followed by a consultation with teams in Nine’s Brisbane bureau.
Nine has 800 staff nationally, and the redundancies would represent around 2.5 per cent of its TV workforce.
In an internal staff memo, Nine’s executive director of TV News and Current Affairs, Fiona Dear, said the aim is to leverage new technology, workflows and a story-centric model that will differentiate 9News and Current Affairs from its competitors.
“I want to be very clear that cost is not driving our decision-making. The permanence and depth of the change we’re delivering will fundamentally alter the way we produce and deliver news at Nine,” she stated.
“We’re investing heavily in this project – in new technology, training, equipment, and in our people. Future News will also deliver growth and revenue opportunities for us as we find new ways to commercialise our content on different platforms. There are also efficiencies – and I want to be transparent about that.”
As audiences fragment away from linear TV, Nine is confident that publishing news on external platforms will not cannibalise its linear TV offering, which has been in structural decline for a number of years.
As pointed out in the Australian Financial Review, Nine’s annual broadcast earnings after costs have declined to $168 million, which is not a huge amount more than its publishing arm, which made $153 million in earnings last year.
“For those in our other markets, please be mindful of the change occurring around you. Future News is a bold and ambitious transformation program. We know it’s not going to be easy and that it won’t be without its challenges,” Dear added.
“But we have a clear plan, and we also have all of you. You do a phenomenal job day in, day out with technology that is complex and nearing the end of its life. This program is going to stretch us all in new ways and will fundamentally change the things we know and have done for decades. However, once finished, we’ll all be using our new skills and knowledge in a modern, cloud-based newsroom that sits amongst the world’s best.”
Dear said that those who accept voluntary redundancies will leave Nine in November.
