Regional television in Australia
VEW-8 Kalgoorlie opened on 18 June 1971 and ITQ-8 Mount Isa commenced on 11 September 1971 before television reached the Northern Territory on 11 November 1971 with the launch of NTD-8 Darwin.
The last regional stations to launch were GSW-9 Albany (a relay of BTW-3 Bunbury) on 29 August 1974, RTS-5A Loxton on 26 November 1976 and GTW-11 Geraldton on 21 January 1977.
For instance, before aggregation, there were three separate licence areas in northern New South Wales – Newcastle, New England, and the Mid North Coast, each served by a single commercial station.
Southern New South Wales was the first area to be formed, in two phases (as a result of problems in Orange and Wagga), starting on 31 March 1989.
Tasmania was aggregated in 1994, albeit with only two stations – Southern Cross is a dual Seven and Ten affiliate, while Tas TV took programming from the Nine Network.
A number of areas were not aggregated, due to their small size and relative inability to support more than one commercial station – these included Griffith, Mildura, Darwin and regional Western Australia.
Throughout the 1990s, a number of changes relating to local programming and identity began to take place – the first of which was to occur for NRTV, bought out by QTV's owners, Telecasters Australia in 1993.
Similarly, the Southern Cross Network in Victoria changed its name and logo to a pseudo-Ten SCN design.
The same network later axed local news services and changed its name to Ten Victoria, in line with moves taken by the Telecasters Australia-owned stations in New South Wales and Queensland.
[1][2] A joint complaint to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal against the ABA and Imparja Television in 1996 found in favour of MTN-9 but against the other incumbent stations.
In both the Darwin and Mildura cases, it was determined that Imparja satisfied the ABA's criteria of being in a position to run a second service in the area.
Prime Television's applications in both Griffith and Mildura, for the purposes of the appeal, were rejected on the grounds of insufficient local coverage.
[3] When the auction process ended in late 1996, however, Prime was awarded the Mildura licence for $3.2 million, and commenced broadcasting with the callsign PTV-32 in 1997.
In two station markets, the two existing broadcasters were allowed to form joint ventures to later bid for digital-only licences following the introduction of digital terrestrial television in Australia in 2001.
It is a feed of the Central West NSW station of Prime Television, and is licensed as AMN, broadcasting on UHF 31.
WIN Television won the ability to broadcast to the entire regional Western Australia market (as opposed to GWN, which held separate licences in various areas), and subsequently launched its new station WOW in 1999.
Supplementary licences were also issued to SCB and WIN in parts of regional South Australia and Broken Hill, while at the same time, local programming was cut.
Prime and Southern Cross responded to this by launching two-minute bulletins for all affected regions from areas in which local news was already produced, as well as in Southern Cross Ten's case the current affairs program State Focus, and on Prime, a Saturday morning children's programme Saturday Club.
During April 2007, SP Telemedia announced that it would consider selling NBN Television, and had received at least two bids, one each from WIN (in its second attempt of entering the northern NSW market) and Nine Network's owner PBL Media.
The purchase also secured permanent status of supplying Nine's content to the station's entire coverage area, sparing any future affiliation switches.
[12][13] Justice Hammerschlag of the NSW Supreme Court dismissed the case on 28 April 2016, citing that "live streaming is not broadcasting within the meaning of the PSA (program supply agreement), and that Nine is under no express or implied obligation not to do it.
On 12 March 2021, Nine announced that it would return to WIN Television as its regional affiliate in most markets beginning 1 July 2021, in a deal that would last at least seven years.
WIN would also provide advertising sales services for Nine's owned-and-operated stations NBN and NTD (with the former succeeding a similar agreement it had with SCA).
Nine CEO Hugh Marks explained that "while our relationship with Southern Cross has been strong over the last five years, the opportunities presented by the WIN Network to both extend the reach of Nine's premium content into more regional markets under one agreement, and to work cooperatively with them on a national and local news operation, mean this is the right time for us to return to WIN.
Prior to this, Seven's previous attempt in 2019 was blocked by shareholders Antony Catalano, co-owner of Australian Community Media, and Bruce Gordon, owner of competitor WIN Corporation.
In order to fulfil regulations put in place by the Australian Communications & Media Authority, the majority of regional networks are required to provide original, locally targeted output such as news, current affairs, or children's programmes.
Southern Cross Television (now Seven) in Tasmania previously aired Hook, Line and Sinker alongside a range of other regional programs.
Imparja Television also produce various local indigenous programs, as well as Yamba's Playtime, a daily show for pre-school children.
It was hosted by former GMA regular Susie Elelman, the show covered a range of topical issues including health, parenting, cooking, fitness, fashion, gardening, beauty and relationships.
Due to four different timeslot changes and disputes within network management, Susie was cancelled by WIN Television in late 2009.
