Nine News Illawarra to launch on Monday night

In 2001, Prime stopped its Wollongong bulletins and, since then, WIN has been the only network offering local news coverage.

On Monday night, that changes when Southern Cross Austereo and affiliate partner the Nine Network launch Nine News Illawarra.

The hour-long bulletin will air at 6pm but Nine Network Regional News Director Mike Dalton said that timeslot wasn’t chosen so as to go head-to-head with WIN’s longrunning local news half-hour.

“That’s just our news time,” Mr Dalton said.

“Channel Nine news has always gone to air at six o’clock. We’ve always been a six o’clock channel. We won’t be changing that.”

The network is also setting up three other regional news bulletins in NSW and four in Victoria.

To simplify things they will all run on the same template, with sections within the hour broadcast dedicated to local news and sport.

“We will have a local news window where we will have Wollongong content for local news and local sport and we’ll also do local weather,” Mr Dalton said.

“But if the story is relevant across the state we can easily take it out of the local Wollongong window and put it in the broader body of the news.

“Then it goes to the rest of the state as well.”

While the bulletin will be edited and filmed in Sydney, the network has set up a base in the region.

“We’ve set up a newsroom in Wollongong with three reporters and two camera people/editors and they’ll be supplying us with stories that are important to the local community,” Mr Dalton said.

The WIN Network didn’t fear the competition of another news service, said CEO Andrew Lancaster.

“We've been doing local news in the Illawarra for 50 years and we're confident our 30-minute local bulletin will continue to lead the way,” Mr Lancaster said.

WIN’s owner Bruce Gordon said no-one could match it’s “purely local” news bulletin.

“We know this community and we know local news,” Mr Gordon said.

“Our Illawarra news staff live and work here.”