TNT (TV station)

This article is about the Australian TNT station. For other television services named "TNT", see TNT (disambiguation).

TNT

150px
Tasmania
Branding	Southern Cross
Slogan	Your Favourites, Your Station
Channels	Analog: see table below Digital: see table below
Affiliations	Seven
Owner	Southern Cross Austereo (Southern Cross Television (TNT9) Pty Ltd)
First air date	May 26, 1962
Call letters' meaning	Television Northern Tasmania
Former affiliations	independent (1962-1994) Network Ten (secondary, 1994-2008)
Transmitter power	see table below
Height	see table below
Transmitter coordinates	see table below

TNT is a television station based in Launceston, Tasmania, Australia. Originally broadcasting only to Launceston and Northern Tasmania, it has broadcast to the whole of Tasmania since aggregation of the Tasmanian television market in 1994. It is now known as Southern Cross Tasmania.

History

• 1962 - Founded as Northern TV Ltd and broadcasts in Launceston and Northern Tasmania
• 1965 - Became part of ENT Ltd (Examiner-Northern TV Ltd)
• 1977 - as TNT shares the same channel number as the Nine Network, begins broadcasting Nine Network programs and adopts the slogan Still the One
• 1980 - adopts a starred version of the Nine Network's "9 Dots" logo
• 1982 - ENT bought TVT-6 in Hobart
• 1985 - TNT and TVT officially relaunched as TasTV, callsigns remain for both stations
• 1989 - ENT sold TNT-9 to Tricom Corporation, which subsequently became Southern Cross Broadcasting; station became known on-air as Southern Cross Network
• 1994 - Aggregation of Tasmanian television market occurs - Southern Cross broadcasts statewide, competing with TasTV
• 1999 - Southern Cross Tasmania, while still a part of Southern Cross Broadcasting, changes logo independently of Southern Cross stations on the mainland.
• 2003 - Southern Cross and WIN Television launch Tasmanian Digital Television, a jointly owned digital only commercial broadcaster based in Hobart.
• 2005 - Southern Cross Broadcasting adapts new logo for all stations it owns. Southern Cross Tasmania loses its Tasmanian Tiger logo to a unified corporate Southern Cross logo.

Southern Cross Tasmania (SCTV) is an affiliate of the Seven Network and Tasmanian Digital Television is now the Ten affiliate.

Local programming

Southern Cross Television producing the majority of local Tasmanian television output, chiefly consisting of the high rating Southern Cross Nightly News, various non-news programming and occasional sports coverage.

Previous local programmes produced by TNT-9 include Sports Club (weekly sports review), Quiz Quest (children's game show), The Saturday night Show (variety), Down the Line (morning talk/local events), The Saturday Morning Fun Show (kids), Tasmanian New Faces (talent) and annual coverage of Targa Tasmania and The Launceston Cup.

News & current affairs

Southern Cross News is the station's flagship news program, broadcast live every night at 6:00pm from the Launceston studios with short updates throughout the day. The nightly news bulletin is consistently the highest rating television program in Tasmania.

Notable presenters

Main anchors

• Jo Palmer

Outside of this bulletin, Southern Cross Tasmania airs national news and current affairs output from the Seven Network, including:

• Sunrise
• Weekend Sunrise
• The Morning Show
• Seven News (Early News, Morning News, Afternoon News at 4)
• NBC Today

Non-news output

Hook, Line and Sinker

The fishing show Hook, Line and Sinker is the most popular Tasmanian-made program airing and is broadcast Australia-wide. The program is hosted by former news journalists Andrew Hart and Nick Duigan.

Renovation Relief

Renovation Relief is a DIY Program hosted by famous wood-chopper David Foster in which he and a team of people from sponsors (i.e. Gunns) renovate a house, most commonly for people who have done something for the community or have enabled children.

Targa Torque

Broadcast every night during Targa Tasmania fortnight, Andrew Hart and Nick Duigan report and comment on the events of the day.

Holiday at Home

Holiday at Home is a lifestyle program which promotes places to stay and things to do in Tasmania.

Burnie Ten - Ten Week Challenge

For the ten weeks leading up to the Burnie Ten, Mark Connelly trains a group of people in a program sponsored by Southern Cross Tasmania. Weekly updates are broadcast during commercial breaks. In the early years of the program, people who took part were well known in Tasmania, however in 2006, a Launceston family were trained to run the event.

Sports coverage

Southern Cross airs most sports coverage from both Seven and Ten Networks, this includes coverage like Australian Rules Football, tennis and motorsport. In the 1990s Southern Cross aired Ten's Sports Tonight however this was replaced by Seven's Current Affairs Program, Today Tonight.

Southern Cross screens live AFL coverage with no advertisement breaks between goals. Only football games involving matches in Tasmania are delayed. The station promotes extensive coverage of Tasmanian sports in its news coverage including cricket, athletics, netball and basketball. The station's main sports reporters are Chris Rowbottom, Alicia Muling, and Trent Dann.

Local sport

Locally, coverage of the international road race Targa Tasmania is produced and aired each year. The station also produces live coverage of the Launceston and Hobart Cups. Regular updates on the annual Boxing Day Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race are broadcast during the duration of the race.

Affiliation

Southern Cross is affiliated with both the metropolitan Seven Network and Network Ten. This originates from the aggregation of the Tasmanian television market in the early 1990s, with TVT-6 (now WIN Television) holding the Nine Network affiliation. This dual affiliation is shared with Southern Cross' sister station in Darwin (TND-34).

The Tasmanian Digital Television (TDT) service, run as a joint venture with WIN, carries a full Network Ten affiliation, carrying programs from Ten's Melbourne station (ATV-10) with local advertisements. (Due to it being a joint venture, TDT does not take on the Southern Cross Ten branding.) It is expected that Southern Cross will eventually become a full Seven Network affiliate if and when take-up of digital television is considered widespread in the state.

Main transmitters

Region served	City	Channels (Analog/ Digital)	First air date	ERP (Analog/ Digital)	HAAT (Analog/ Digital)1	Transmitter Coordinates	Transmitter Location
Hobart	Hobart	31 (UHF) 10 (VHF)	April 30, 1994	1.300 kW 0.050 kW	1061 m 1030 m	(analog) (digital)	Mount Wellington
North Eastern Tasmania	Launceston	9 (VHF) 38 (UHF)	May 26, 1962	0.300 kW 1.250 kW	809 m 839 m	(analog) (digital)	Mount Barrow

Notes:

• 1. HAAT estimated from http://www.itu.int/SRTM3/ using EHAAT.

See also

• Southern Cross Television

External links

• Australian Television Archive page on TNT9