Nine News Melbourne is the weeknight, flagship news bulletin of the Nine Network in Australia, screened in Melbourne, Tasmania, and across Victoria.
Like all Nine News bulletins, the Melbourne bulletin runs for one hour, from 6pm every day.[1] It comprises local, national and international news, as well as sport, weather and finance.
History
The late Brian Naylor presented National Nine News Melbourne for 20 years from 1978 following his resignation from HSV-7 to 1998. Following his retirement, he was succeeded by Peter Hitchener as weeknight presenter, while Jo Hall took over from Hitchener as weekend presenter. Hall scaled back her work with Nine to news updates and fill-in duties in November 2011, with Weekend Today newsreader Alicia Loxley taking over as weekend presenter. Rob Gell formerly presented the weather until 2003, when he was replaced by Nixon; Gell subsequently defected to the rival Seven News Melbourne bulletin presenting the weather on weekends.
In March 2011, the GTV studios moved their base from Bendigo Street, Richmond, to a new building in Bourke Street, Docklands.
In May 2017, the station launched its first local afternoon news bulletin, Nine Afternoon News Melbourne, putting it head to head with its rival station Seven's local afternoon news. The bulletin is presented by Brett McLeod.
In December 2021, it was announced that Peter Hitchener would scale back to four days a week from January 2022 presenting from Monday to Thursday with Alicia Loxley presenting on Friday.[2][3]
For many decades, Nine News Melbourne was the most dominant local news service, often drawing a peak audience of more than 400,000 viewers. However, in the mid-2000s, the bulletin started to lose ground to the rival Seven News Melbourne, winning only 24 (out of 40) weeks in 2006 and then narrowly losing in 2007 when it won 19 weeks (to Seven's 20 weeks, with the other week tied).[6][7] Even during the years when Nine News struggled nationally, the Melbourne bulletin remained competitive, being the only metropolitan bulletin to win any weeks against Seven News in 2008 and 2009.[8][9][10] By 2012, however, Nine News Melbourne had re-established its ratings dominance, often leading their rivals by an average margin of over 100,000 viewers.[11][12]
