One thing I find incredibly annoying is when I am watching the "news" part of the news and the first two or three articles are "sport" (some footy club has signed up some monkey from another club...more in the sport section of the bulletin, or some old codger has announced his retirement as coach...more about this in the sport section of the news).
In some cases, most of the news section is taken up with sport! We normally have our dinner when the sport is on, or I mute the sound
The "after news" affairs programs, I think, are largely touchy feely articles to make you feel good or some poor person is the victim of a local council or some rich land developer, designed to make you angry about the inequalities of our society. Generally, not a lot of "news" as such.
But overall, I agree...some times they must be really desperate for some filler for the half hour!