NINE BAILS FROM THE TOP END …

Nine’s closure of its Northern Territory news bureau leaves the ABC as the only television outlet covering the Top End.

It’s yet another blow to regional news coverage across this wide brown land, a massive loss to Darwin’s local community and another victory to the international tech thugs.

Nine is proposing to replace the Darwin bulletin with the network’s Queensland service. It says it will retain a reporter and a camera operator to “tell the territory’s stories to a national audience”.

Considering that the Northern Territory has a population of about 250,000 (more than Hobart) and is bigger than France, Germany and Italy combined, (and twice the size of Texas), that’s a big ask!

I hope the Nine team has a reliable crew car: just driving from Darwin to Alice Springs, around 1500km, is the rough equivalent of driving from London to Rome.

Thank God Darwin still has its inimitable NT News to keep it up to date.