For example, Seven's Sunrise, the country's top-rating breakfast television show, aims to achieve a familial environment . "There is a suggestion of a living room in the arrangement of chairs and furniture", and keen faces press against the windows that open onto Martin Place - Sydney's main thoroughfare. These faces are those of the 'Sunrise family'. Being a proper member of the sunrise family involves signing up online, where you receive newsletters and discounts at certain shops and are able to send stories into the show - "The show's website boasts that its point of difference is that viewers set the agenda."
As Margaret Simons said in her fabulous book, "The Content Makers",
"Mel and Kochie are parents. They know what it means - they smile ruefully at the audience and at each other - to be up all night with a crying baby. The Mother's Group will be up soon. Breaking news passes on a ticker at the bottom of the screen - war, politicians' claims, the weather - while Kochie and Mel smile and chat and follow up the issues that drive viewers' lives, still trying to send them into the day with a smile."
The competition between news stations is palpable. They need to be creative with not only their content but their method of distribution. Channel Nine is known for its closed-off culture, where what they give is dependent solely on the value of what they can take. Simons spoke of not even being able to get an interview with the network, one of their corporate public relations "hacks" in fact saying, "What's in it for us?". Contrastingly, she presents her interaction with Channel Seven as "light and friendly" as she was "welcomed into the newsroom" personally by their news director, Chris Willis.
Ratings are the tell-all of commercial media success. "Every morning they hit the desk of the newsroom executives, and there are teams of specialists who analyse them. They show, minute by minute, how each channel rated the previous day. It is possible to see the movement of the audience - not only what they watched, but when they switched channels, where they went and for how long, and who switched off altogether." It has been found that there are some "reliable turn-ons and turn-offs", which lend themselves to the value of that which is concerned with everyday life - health and transport news, for example, followed by what is happening in the viewer's locality and "stuff about the weirdness of folk". It is also said that any picture of politicians in Parliament causes the ratings graphs to dive. "It's so grey in there", Chris Willis says, "People switch off in droves".
It is also made evident that television news cannot cover everything, or even most things. "Television must have pictures...It's not like newspapers, where there are dozens of people and dozens of stories. A camera crew and reporter might hang around somewhere all day waiting for the shot. A news item that takes one and a half minutes to tell might take an hour and a half to edit, and getting the story might take a whole day. 'You have to be selective' says Willis...The big push at Channel Seven is to be more proactive, to move away from following up what was in the morning's newspapers." In this, it shows the need for individuality in order to attain interest from which they can gain trust. They must strive for originality and interactivity.
"The way of the future is interactivity, says Peter Meakin. That's why Sunrise has been such a success, 'because of the feel and the reality of constant interaction with the viewers.' Interactivity is the means by which free-to-air television can, if it wishes, campaign - at least on issues the public is already concerned about. In 2006, Sunrise launched a 'Cool the Globe' campaign on global warming, including regular items on how to reduce power consumption and offers of a free kit for viewers with a form letter to be sent to politicians...In November the Sunrise presenters took part in protest marches calling for government action on global warming. The Sunrise program became greenhouse=gas neutral, adding up all the energy used by cameras, lights and so forth and reducing it or offsetting it by planting trees. It became the first media outlet to be declared Greenhouse Friendly by the Federal Government. The proper position for a television station, says Meakin, is to be a little ahead of the audience but not too far ahead."
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