South Australia's last local regional TV news bulletin on GTS/BKN, for Spencer Gulf and Broken Hill, axed 2023
Casey Treloar presenting Nightly News 7 Spencer Gulf that had content from bureaus in Port Pirie, Broken Hill, Port Augusta, Port Lincoln and Whyalla but was presented from a studio in Hobar from 2019.
South Australia’s only regional television news bulletin on GTS/BKN, covering Spencer Gulf and Broken Hill, had its nightly bulletin shut down suddenly in April 2023.
The station owner, media conglomerate Southern Cross Austereo (who sold the station licence to Australian Digital Holdings in 2025), confirmed the end of Nightly News 7 Spencer Gulf.
South Australia’s other (and first from 1966) regional television station SES8 at Mount Gambier in the southeast lost its local news bulletin in 2013 after it was taken by the WIN network. GTS4, started at Port Pirie, signed on in 1968 shortly before BKN at Broken Hill. In 1974, the stations (and their repeaters serving Port Augusta, Whyalla and Port Lincoln areas) merged to form Spencer Gulf Telecasters and broadcast as GTS/BKN Television.
That company was bought by national media company Southern Cross Broadcasting in 2001 to create Central GTS/BKN. GTS/BKN half-hour nightly regional news program survived the takeover, with reporters and video journalists based at bureaus in Port Pirie, Broken Hill, Port Augusta, Port Lincoln and Whyalla, with coverage extending to viewers in the mid north and Eyre Peninsula regions of South Australia. The bulletin in 2019 was presented from the Southern Cross Austereo studios in Hobart.
Formerly known as Southern Cross News, it was rebranded to Nightly News 7 Spencer Gulf that year and shifted to 7Two at 7pm rather than airing on the main channel. The day's bulletin was later uploaded by the station's YouTube channel. Presenters of the program during its tenure as Southern Cross News include Virginia Langeberg, Tim Hatfield, Fraser Goldsworthy and Julie Snook, while Will McDonald, Nicole Haack and Rosanna Mangiarelli presented under the Central News title. Nightly News video journalists included Annabel Francis (Port Pirie), Daniel Pizarro (Port Augusta/Whyalla), Ally Hall (Port Lincoln) and Josh Mercer (Broken Hill).
