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The Tasmanian presenters of WIN News have signed off for the final time, as fears grow that a move to present bulletins from New South Wales will lead to audience decline.
Nine jobs have been slashed as part of a move to present Tasmanian news bulletin from WIN's Wollongong studios.
The newsroom has been halved from 18, down to just four journalists, four camera operators and a news manager.
RMIT University senior journalism lecturer Alex Wake said audiences were unlikely to respond well to the change.
"I will imagine that Tasmanians are very proud people [and] will immediately switch off the moment they hear a mispronunciation," Dr Wake said.
"When you mispronounce the names of places, or you say something is close by when it is a long way away, that really turns viewers off.
"They want to know that you know their local communities."
She said it was very difficult to produce news from a different state and not lose quality.
"Even if you leave journalists on the ground you do get a lack of local input," she said.
"It might be fine to start off with, but over time that knowledge gets lost. In other places where we have seen this happen you end up getting people saying the wrong names of streets, and just not understanding the context of stories."
President of the Tasmanian branch of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, Mark Thomas, said the union was supporting journalists that have accepted redundancies.
"I have been attempting to assist both union and non-union members," he said.
"When a media job is lost in Tasmania it rarely, if ever, comes back. The whole WIN television news team has undergone extraordinary stress for last two weeks."
Mr Thomas described the new model as a "faux Tasmanian bulletin" with a Wollongong-based presenter at its head.
"At this stage I don't hold any fears for the quality of the content because I know the journalists who will remain at WIN television [in Tasmania] are professionals and will continue to do the best job they possibly can with the resources they've got," he said.
"The fear I have I have is that Tasmanians will turn on WIN News from Monday and see an unknown face who they won't know.
"We like to hear our names pronounced correctly, we all shudder when we hear Launceston pronounced 'LAWN-ceston'.
"Having followed the ratings for many years now I am just very concerned about where the ratings will go."
WIN News presenters Bruce Roberts and Amy Duggan will deliver the Tasmanian news from Monday.
The ABC understands Tasmanian presenters Lucy Breaden and Brent Costelloe have accepted new roles as journalists.
In their final bulletin to air on Friday evening, Ms Breaden assured viewers there was nothing to fear.
"Our team of committed and hardworking colleagues will be here next week on the ground bringing you the same Tasmanian sourced and produced half hour of news as we always have," she said.
Topics: television, arts-and-entertainment, television-broadcasting, broadcasting, information-and-communication, media, hobart-7000