Regional television in Australia

From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
Jump to: navigation, search

Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. Regional television is a term given to local television services in areas outside of the five main Australian cities (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth).

History

1960s

The first regional television stations were launched five years after the rollout of television to metropolitan Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. GLV-10 in Traralgon opened on 9 December 1961 and was followed 14 days later by GMV-6 in Shepparton and BCV-8 Bendigo.

Television continued to expand throughout Victoria and the rest of the country throughout the 1960s with no fewer than twenty five stations making their first transmissions between 1962 and 1968.

1962 station openings

1963 station opening

1964 station openings

1965 station openings

1966 station openings

1967 station opening

1968 station openings

Many of the first stations produced their own local programming, supplemented to content from the capital city stations such as GTV-9 Melbourne's In Melbourne Tonight. GLV-10 Traralgon was amongst the first to make use of live 'off-air' relays of programes from metropolitan stations without the use of video recording equipment.

1970s

VEW-8 Kalgoorlie opened on 18 June 1971 and ITQ-8 Mount Isa commenced on 11 September 1971 before regional 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.

Similar to their metropolitan counterparts, various stations began to form programming and operational partnerships in order to reduce operating costs and share the cost of imported programming.

A partnership between NRN-11 Coffs Harbour and ECN-8 Taree was split up when NRN joined RTN-8 to form Northern Rivers Television in 1971. ECN later went into partnership with NEN-9 Tamworth.

All television stations in Australia, including regional stations, were required to convert to colour transmission in 1975.

1980s

Stations continued to form various partnerships and networks throughout the 1980s.

In order for the metropolitan 0-10 Network to become Network 10, a number of regional stations were required to move to different frequencies. These included GLV-10 in Gippsland, who moved to channel 8 in order to allow ATV-0 Melbourne to move to channel 10 in 1980. DDQ-10 and TVQ-0 switched channels to become DDQ-0 and TVQ-10, and SEQ10 became SEQ55 in 1988.

The last regional station to launch before aggregation launched unofficially on 2 January 1988 – IMP-9, Imparja Television in Alice Springs, began transmission via the AUSSAT satellites, as well as a number of terrestrial transmitters.

Aggregation

The Hawke Labor government of the 1980s introduced a system of regional equalisation, known as aggregation, which would provide regional viewers with the same viewing choice as their metropolitan counterparts.

Local stations protested at this proposal, arguing that their profits would fall, and that local output would also decrease. They offered their own proposal, whereby the existing operator would be allowed to operate relays of the other two networks, allowing a combination of both viewer choice and local programming. If NBN were to take the Nine affiliation, for example, their two relays would offer programs from the Seven and Ten networks, direct from Sydney.[citation needed] This proposal was, however, rejected.

The new system would allow stations to transmit into neighbouring markets, as an affiliate of one of the three metropolitan networks. 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. After aggregation, these three licence areas merged, with the three stations in direct competition for viewers.

Soon after realising they had lost their battle with the government, the stations began to organise affiliations with metro networks. Stations that hadn't joined forces beforehand began to merge and form new networks:

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. WIN Television Wollongong (WIN-4) became an affiliate of the Nine Network, The Prime Network became a Seven affiliate, and Capital Television in Canberra became a Network Ten affiliate.

The next area to be aggregated was Queensland, which took place on 31 December 1990. QTV was to become a Nine affiliate, Star Television a Network Ten affiliate, and the Sunshine Television Network a Seven affiliate, however in the week before aggregation was due to take place, WIN Television bought Star Television and gave them the Nine affiliation – meaning that QTV was forced to change its affiliation to Network Ten. A year later, northern New South Wales was aggregated. NBN Television became the Nine Network affiliate, while the Seven Network would be carried by Prime7. Northern Rivers Television became the Ten affiliate.

Aggregation in Victoria took place between 1992 and 1993. VIC TV became a Nine Network affiliate, Prime Television the Seven affiliate, and SCN the Ten affiliate. Tasmania was aggregated in 1994, albeit with only two stations – Southern Cross is a Seven and Ten affiliate, while TAS TV took programming from the Nine Network.

Remote and Central Australia was the final area to be aggregated – one of the largest geographical licence areas, taking in parts of the Northern Territory, western Queensland, and other areas in which terrestrial television signals cannot be received. Stations broadcast to this area mainly through satellite or re-transmission stations. Imparja Television, based in Alice Springs, became a dual Nine and Ten affiliate, while Seven Central became a Seven affiliate.

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.

1990s

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. Soon after, both stations took on generic Network Ten branding with the name Ten Northern New South Wales and Ten Queensland. Local news services were also axed in most of these areas with the exception of Townsville and Cairns. 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.[citation needed]

NBN Television made similar moves in 1993, when it launched a new logo based on that of the Nine Network at the time. Sunshine Television was purchased by the Seven Network in 1995 and became nearly identical to the network's metropolitan stations under the name Seven Queensland.

A second commercial licence was made available for single-licence areas such as Mildura, Griffith, and Darwin. Incumbent stations were permitted to apply for the new licence under Section 73 of the Broadcasting Services Act 1992, however only if the Australian Broadcasting Authority, at the time, felt that there was no other operator who would be interested or able to operate a new station in the area. The ABA initially denied all three stations the ability to operate the new licences.[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. Telecasters Australia launched Seven Darwin using TND-34 in the same year, followed a $2.1 million bid for the licence.[4]

In the same year,[5] an amendment was made to the Broadcasting Services Act affirming the ability of existing broadcasters in one and two commercial station markets to apply for "supplementary licences". These new licences allowed either a single incumbent or group of incumbents working together to run an additional channel.

In the then-single station markets, applying existing broadcasters gained both analog and digital licences for a new channel. 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. The new licences were known as section 38A and 38B licences, respectively, after the relevant sections in the Broadcasting Services Act. Remote Central and Eastern Australia remains the only licence area without one of these stations either proposed or currently available.

The name "Section 38A" refers to the applicable section of the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 which grants such rights to solus operators.[6]

Using its Section 38A licence, MTN-9 was able to begin their supplementary service in 1997 using the callsign AMN-31. The new station carried almost all of sister Prime7 station CBN-8's Prime programming with the exception of local news and major sporting events broadcast by Network Ten. This was allocated on 1996-07-18,[7] and went to air in 1997, after being initially rejected by the Australian Broadcasting Authority. It is a feed of the Central West NSW version of Prime Television, and is licensed as AMN, broadcasting on UHF 31. A second licence for remote Western Australia, one of the last remaining solus markets, was put up for auction in 1998. 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. In the same year, WIN purchased Griffith affiliate MTN-9, as well as SES-8 Mount Gambier and RTS-5a Riverland.

2000s-present

In 2000[citation needed] Southern Cross Broadcasting bought out both Telecasters Australia and Central GTS/BKN, subsequently removing any remaining local references, and rebranding its new stations with the 'Southern Cross' name. 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. The remote Eastern and remote Central licence areas were also merged at this time, amongst the last to be aggregated.

The solus operators in the regional licence areas of South Australia have been granted an 38A licence, being allocated on 2002-04-24.Spencer Gulf/Broken Hill: Central GTS/BKN, owned by Southern Cross Broadcasting was granted callsigns SGS and SCN, and branded as Southern Cross Ten, carrying Network Ten programming.

In more recent years, the premise has been extended to allow for two station markets where there are two different owners to apply, either separately or jointly, to operate a digital-only third station. These are known as "Section 38B" licences,[8] and were created by the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Digital Television and Datacasting) Act 2000.[9]

Section 38B allows current operators to apply for the additional licence either as a joint venture company, or separately; in the case where both operators apply separately to ACMA, the licence is to be allocated via auction. However, as of 2007 all of the licences so far granted under section 38B have been to joint ventures between existing operators. These licences were awarded to Tasmania (Tasmanian Digital Television, owned by WIN and Southern Cross), Mildura (Mildura Digital Television, owned by WIN and Prime), and Darwin (Darwin Digital Television, owned by PBL Media and Southern Cross).

The axing of local news services by Prime7 and Southern Cross Broadcasting in Newcastle, Wollongong, Queensland, Darwin and remote Central & Eastern Australia triggered a review of local content regulations by the Australian Broadcasting Authority. The ABA later ruled, in 2003, that a minimum level of local content should be provided in the four largest regional licence areas. 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 Prime7, a Saturday morning children's programme Saturday Club.

In December 2003, the first digital-only commercial television station was launched, Tasmanian Digital Television, operating on a supplementary licence owned jointly by WIN Television and Southern Cross. Similarly, Mildura Digital Television (a similar joint venture between WIN and Prime) began broadcasting in 2006 to Mildura, offering exclusive Ten based programming for the first time in the area. It is a direct feed of Ten Melbourne with local advertising. Darwin Digital Television opened transmission on 28 April 2008.

The Nine Network's owner, PBL Media, purchased affiliate station NBN Television from its owners SP Telemedia, in May 2007.

Broadcasting

Three-station Markets

The majority of these licence areas are on the more densely populated east coast, in which three commercial stations are each affiliated to the Seven Network, Nine Network and Network Ten from their respective capital cities. In addition to these, digital and analogue television channels from ABC Television and SBS Television are also available. The majority of these areas were aggregated in the early 1990s.

Areas with supplementary licences

Programming

1: Network feed. 2: State feed. 3: Local feed. 4: Programming aired on a television station

Each commercial network (both regional and metropolitan) can be seen as being composed of three layers, with some exceptions. The first is the "national feed" – content that is broadcast to the entire country, more-or-less at the same time (accounting for timezones and minor rescheduling). This category is composed of nearly all the non-news programs and sometimes station promotions and branding.

The second is the "state feed", content that is broadcast to the entire state or territory. It comprises mainly state news, as well as current affairs programs and station promotions. This is usually the case in Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia. The third is the "local feed", content broadcast to a specific market, such as local news and advertising.

Original Programming

In order to fulfil regulations put in place by the Australian Communications and Media Authority, the majority of regional networks are required to provide original, locally targeted output such as news, current affairs, or children's programmes.[11]

WIN Television, Australia's largest regional network, produces a number of programs including sports magazine show Fishing Australia, cooking show Alive and Cooking, and travel shows Destinations and Postcards Australia. Southern Cross Television in Tasmania airs Hook, Line and Sinker alongside a range of other regional programs.

Both Prime7 and GWN7 produce their own versions of The Saturday Club. Prime also produces country music show A Little Bit of Country as well as an agricultural news program, On the Land. Imparja Television also produce various local indigenous programs, as well as Yamba's Playtime, a daily show for pre-school children. Most Imparja-produced programming is also shown on National Indigenous Television.

News

ACMA regulations have, since 2003, required stations to provide minimum levels of local news and other content.[11]

In most cases, newsroom staff including reporters, camera crews and producers are based in newsrooms within the coverage area though the news program itself may be presented and broadcast from studios outside the region. For example, news staff for Seven's Mackay bulletin is based in the city with the programs themselves presented from studios in Maroochydore.

Scheduling

The majority of programming in regional areas is shown at the same time as its metropolitan counterpart, with some exceptions, mainly for local news programs. For instance, A Current Affair is shown at 7.30pm rather than 7.00pm on WIN stations via Nine's multichannel GEM (except in some areas such as regional Western Australia, where it airs the program at the same time as in Perth, as a result of the axing of WIN News bulletins in the area). NBN had also done the same practice until the extension of Nine's metropolitan bulletins on 6 January 2014, that gave NBN to air ACA at the same time as in Sydney. For similar reasons, prior to the extension of the Seven News' east coast bulletins to one hour, Seven Queensland shows Today Tonight at 4.30pm in place of the network's 4.30 News bulletin, and then moved to 7.00pm on 7Two.

Many dual-network affiliates, such as WIN WA, show a combination of two network's programming at differing times of the week. Prime7 and GWN7 choose to replace nearly all Seven Network programs between midnight and 6am with infomercials, along with Southern Cross Ten which also replaces some morning programs with infomercials.

Recently, WIN Television has begun to adopt a dramatically different overnight schedule to metropolitan counterpart the Nine Network. In place of Nine's overnight programming, WIN show repeats of WIN News, programs from its Crawfords Australia archives, and some Nine programs not shown in their normal timeslot.

References

  1. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Broadcasting Services Act 1992: Sect 38A Additional commercial television licences in single markets. Retrieved from AustLII on 11 September 2007.
  7. ↑ Australian Communications and Media Authority. Section 38A of the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 – Allocation of additional commercial television licences in single markets. Retrieved on 11 September 2007.
  8. ↑ Broadcasting Services Act 1992: Sect 38B Additional commercial television licences in 2-station markets. Retrieved from AustLII on 11 September 2007.
  9. ↑ Broadcasting Services Amendment (Digital Television and Datacasting) Act 2000. Retrieved from AustLII on 11 September 2007.
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

See also

Retrieved from "https://infogalactic.com/w/index.php?title=Regional_television_in_Australia&oldid=2791083"