Channel 10’s Perth to east coast move ‘tip of the iceberg’ warns expert Rob McKnight

Plans to move some off-air roles at Channel 10’s Perth newsroom to the east coast are “the tip of the iceberg” and will ultimately mean less local coverage, leading TV commentator and experienced producer Rob McKnight has warned.

Mr McKnight, co-creator of industry news website TV Blackbox, said although viewers may not immediately notice the difference, it would have an effect on local stories.

He also suggested further consolidation by the network’s foreign owner Paramount was likely, after plans to move editors in Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane to Melbourne and Sydney were revealed this week.

“An editor in Sydney or Melbourne is just not going to give a local Perth story the kind of energy they give to a story in their own market,” he said.

The West Australian understands that Perth’s Channel 10 newsroom was told on Monday that as many as four editor roles would be moved to Sydney and Melbourne by the end of the month.

Similar roles in Adelaide and Brisbane have also been affected.

It is understood about 10 staff will be offered redeployment to the Eastern States.

Channel 10 declined to comment or answer questions, including whether it could commit to having a locally-presented news bulletin.

In an email from Paramount’s vice president of news Martin White, staff were told of a change to editing workflow to ensure “greater efficiency” at a challenging time for the media industry.

“No local news gathering, journalism or presentation is impacted by this move in any way,” he said. “A small number of (operations) roles will be redeployed to Sydney and Melbourne, and those impacted have already been spoken to.”

Mr McKnight, a former executive producer of Channel 10’s now defunct breakfast panel show, Studio 10, said he thought the changes would be the “tip of the iceberg” at Channel 10, which recently axed news program The Project.

“I think we are going to see centralisation of Channel 10 continue,” he said.

“You start with editors, then it’s graphics, then ‘oh we can have our producers in Sydney or Melbourne.’

“You will end up with people in Melbourne or Sydney having a very big say on a story from Perth.”

He said there was a big difference in having a local story produced and edited locally. A lack of local knowledge could lead to “silly mistakes.”

It is not the first time Channel 10 has faced questions about its commitment to news in Perth.

In 2000 it moved the studio production of the local bulletin to Sydney, before ultimately returning its weekday bulletin to Perth three years later.

In September 2020, the Perth bulletin production was again transferred to Sydney, leading to redundancies among local staff.

Narelda Jacobs, pictured, started in Perth and moved to Sydney in 2020 to co-host Studio 10 present News from the east coast.

Jacobs now presents the national lunchtime and afternoon news bulletins.