The New Look Nine, A New Look Disappointing News…

Midnight Monday 14 January 2008, the Nine Network decided to go with a new look which involved taking inspiration from an old look. The Nine ‘balls’ which are now the Nine ‘discs’ are back, with new promo’s for the network and a disappointing look for National Nine News.

First of all the new logo and promos started at midnight as said above, and the Network (in Melbourne at least) went watermark-less for the whole night until the Today Show started. Today still remained the same graphically, the only change was the moving of the weather graphic from the right side of screen to the left, and the rotating Nine cube being replaced with the new logo, all moved to the left hand side.

Before…

After…

Next we got a taste of what annoying little watermark we will have to endure when Morning’s With Kerry-Anne Summer Series started, the watermark has a little animation to start off with then goes into its transparent state.

Turn the channel over to 90 and you will be confronted with something quite ugly…

And on Channel 99 a new Video Program Guide…

Before the Morning News, Nine seemed to have a few problems for a few seconds, as seen below…

At 11am it was time for National Nine Morning News with Kelly Connolly, which featured the National Nine News logo exactly the same as the pervious one with no Nine logo and a new blue line at the bottom. The opener was still the same with the logo flying over the buildings, with a new voice over artist to introduce the presenter. The background behind Kelly appears to be a horrible adoption of the pervious one made into a more darker blue, with the old style world map over the top that National Nine News used to use in its presentation before 2006.

Live Cross…

Finance…

The weather graphics are pretty much exactly the same, which in my opinion were/are the best on Aussie TV, but they have under gone some changes with the rainfall areas and the temperatures around the country.

The afternoon edition of National Nine News is exactly the same, with Kelly Connolly with the exception of Jaynie Seal presenting the weather, so not point in posting images of that here (however video below), however I will post this image. Evidence of the Sydney centric news and I can assure you Melbournians who notice this graphic wont be too happy.

If you are like me and think well that was very disappointing, well the 6pm National Nine News especially for Melbourne was another disappointing affair. A lot of people have stated how ugly the Melbourne backdrop, and this could have been the chance for GTV to change it to a live shot of the city or something better, but surprise surprise it is still there. Many reasons for this are that it is an alternative to Seven News, it also may have something to do with the fact that both Sydney and Melbourne studio’s are to be relocated this year and that a change may not happen until then. One positive to come out of the Melbourne edition however was the opening titles. They have changed from a night time scene to a daylight one, and I can only presume when we come out of daylight savings that this will change back to the night version, and also the Melbourne bulletin’s music has come in line with the rest of the network, using the same version of Cool Hand Luke.

Every year when the Australian Open Tennis is on Tony Jones will present sport from Melbourne Park, and usually from the MCG footbridge.

Melbourne’s weather remained unchanged…

Mean while up north in Sydney, their opener also has gone from night to day, usually presented by Mark Ferguson, tonight Peter Overton was in the chair, and the same with Melbourne nothing has really changed except for the logo and graphics.

This is a very big disappointment, the look is all over the place for the news, and in Melbourne the news updates are still using the old sponsor boards, and the previous National Nine News logo! It seems to me that Nine have spent their time getting their promo’s and logo right, yet have just gone for a quick fix with their News, which anyone could argue is one of the most important parts of a network.

Now for a look at some promo’s, which have had a lot of effort put into them and are quite effective. Firstly, if you are in Perth and Adelaide you might be wondering what all the fuss is about with the return of the Nine dots. Quite simply Channel Nine in Adelaide and Perth is owned by Win Television who have decided that they do not want to return the dots, and the end result is then the same Nine logo but dotless as seen in the video below.

The main promo or ident used for nine including all of the personalities has a different version for each city to incorporate the National Nine News presenters. The images are from the Melbourne version, and below are the various videos.

Sydney Version…

Brisbane Version…

Coming-up Tonight…

The new look Nine has dished-up is fantastic, and without a doubt is the best looking network at the moment on Australian Television. However I do worry that this look will become ‘old’ fast, I’m not a fan of a light blue logo on most promo’s being on top of a blue sky backdrop. The exception to this is the Underbelly promo where the logo stands out quite a lot. In the coming day’s their will be a post on Nine’s 2008 programs looking at their promo’s. As stated above, the big disappointment is the News… This has gone a step backwards from being an ugly but tolerable presentation to now what may become unwatchable, but maybe the new look will grow on me eventually.

Technorati tags: Channel Nine, Nine Network, National Nine News

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