What's New
BY Sarah Patterson May 2, 2024
What's New May 25, 2023
ARN unveils regional news expansion plans
Reporter
ARN has announced the launch of the first phase of its regional news expansion plans with the introduction of a series of local news initiatives in the Spencer Gulf and Eyre Peninsula regions of South Australia.
From tomorrow, ARN’s heritage stations in these areas will broadcast an extended 20-minute local news bulletin every Friday that takes an in-depth look at the week’s big stories.
The bulletins will also be available as a podcast via ARN’s free iHeart app. Titled iHeart Spencer Gulf and iHeart Eyre Peninsula, the extension to podcast allows listeners to access the content at their convenience.
Led by Fiona Ellis-Jones, ARN’s Head of News & Information, these initiatives form the blueprint for the subsequent rollout of similar formats across ARN’s other regional markets as part of the network’s comprehensive expansion plans.
Ellis-Jones says “ARN recognises the importance of local news in regional communities, and we’re excited to be launching our extended bulletins and longer form content to the residents of Spencer Gulf and the Eyre Peninsula, providing them with the news they need and deserve.”
Great work! The more local news the better.
Some news services have been cut at ARN in the metro markets in recent months, centralised, creating efficiencies, whatever you want to call it. ARN runs “national network” news services, which were previously localised.
The weekend news is an example of ARN now taking the “networked” news approach of the other FM networks, SCA and Nova entertainment. I listen in Sydney and the news is coming out of another city.
ARN journalists are working harder than ever before on more generic services which can be plugged in to multiple markets.
ARN has cut back on localism for many of its big metropolitan stations.
A longer bulletin in some of the regions, after a merger, is good. But… Cutting your biggest stations news is bad for localism and quality. Listeners can tell if it’s coming out of another city and the pronunciations are wrong.
ARN is increasing the workload of staff for a podcast which is a rip and read news headline hit. When I sampled the podcast the temperature was incorrect. It’s all automation and recorded news.
I was listening to WSFM recently and the news portion for two hours was dead air. Must have been recorded. The standard is dropping.