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Regional television in Australia
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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).
launches of the first regional television stations were launched soon 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.
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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 launches of the first regional television stations were launched soon 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 VEW-8 Kalgoorlie) 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.
Midstate 6-8-9 (later Midstate Television)
RVN-AMV
11-8 (later Northern Rivers Television)
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.
North Queensland Television
The SIX Network (later Television Victoria)
TV8 (later Southern Cross TV8 and then, Southern Cross Network)
TasTV
Golden West Network
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
In an attempt to gain regional votes, 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 cousins.
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. 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 license areas in northern New South Wales - Newcastle, New England, and the North Coast, each served by a single commercial station. After aggregation, these three license 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:
Vision Television (later Star Television)
The Prime Network (later Prime Television)
- CWN-6 Dubbo (previously part of Midstate 6-8-9)
- CBN-8 Orange (previously part of Midstate 6-8-9)
- MTN-9 Griffith (previously part of Midstate 6-8-9, split from network in 1989 to affiliate with WIN Television)
- RVN-2 Wagga Wagga (previously part of RVN-AMV)
- AMV-4 Albury (previously part of RVN-AMV)
Sunshine Television Network (callsign STQ)
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 March 31, 1989. WIN Television Wollongong (WIN-4) became an affiliate of the Nine Network, The Prime Network became a Seven affiliate, and Capital Television Canberra (CTC-7) became a Network Ten affiliate.
The next area to be aggregated was Queensland, which took place on December 31, 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 work 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 Prime Television. 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 became a dual 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 license 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.
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 license was made available for single-license areas such as Mildura, Griffith, and Darwin. Incumbent stations were permitted to apply for the new license 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.
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.
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.
In the same year, 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 licenses following the introduction of digital terrestrial television in Australia in 2001. The new licenses 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 license 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.
Using its Section 38A license, MTN-9 was able to begin their supplementary service in 1997 using the callsign AMN-31. The new station carried almost all of sister Prime Television 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, 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 license 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 licenses 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 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 licenses 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 license 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 license, 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 Ten Network 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 , and were created by the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Digital Television and Datacasting) Act 2000.
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 licenses were awarded to Tasmania (Tasmanian Digital Television, owned by WIN and Southern Cross) and Mildura (Mildura Digital Television, owned by WIN and Prime). A license is expected to be granted in Darwin.
The axing of local news services by Prime Television 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 license 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 Prime Television, 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 license 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.
Northern New South Wales
Southern New South Wales
Regional Victoria
- Prime Television (Seven)
- WIN Television (Nine)
- Southern Cross Ten (Ten)
Regional Queensland
Two-station Markets
In these license areas, two commercial stations, one with a single affiliation to a network and the other with a combination of two metropolitan networks, are available as well as, in some areas, a joint-venture third channel owned by the two existing stations, typically digital-only. Although many of these areas are technically three-station markets, they are considered to have two stations due to the nature of the third, supplementary license.
Areas with supplementary licenses
Tasmania
Mildura/Sunraysia, Victoria and New South Wales
Darwin, Northern Territory
Areas without supplementary licenses
Regional and Remote Western Australia
Remote Eastern and Central Australia
Griffith/MIA, New South Wales
- Prime Television (Seven, supplementary)
- WIN Griffith (Nine/Ten)
Spencer Gulf/Broken Hill, New South Wales
- Southern Cross GTS/BKN (Seven/Nine)
- Southern Cross Ten (Ten, supplementary)
South-Eastern South Australia and the Riverland
- WIN SA (Nine/Ten, planning to affiliate with Seven)
- WIN Ten (Ten, supplementary)
Programming
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 sometimes 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.
WIN Television, Australia's largest regional network, produces a number of programs including weekday talk show Susie (from its Wollongong studios), Fishing Australia and travel show Destinations. Southern Cross Ten produce various state-based editions of their weekly regional current affairs program, State Focus, while Southern Cross Television in Tasmania air Hook, Line and Sinker alongside a range of other regional programs.
Prime Television air children's program The Saturday Club, country music show A Little Bit of Country as well as an agricultural news program, On the Land. Yamba's Playhouse, produced by Imparja Television, is shown on its own station and also on National Indigenous Television.
News
ACMA regulations have, since 2003, required stations to provide minimum levels of local news and other content.
WIN Television produces 30-minute local bulletins on weekdays for each of its coverage areas, with the exception of some parts of Queensland, followed by the capital city of that state's edition of National Nine News. In Tasmania however, WIN News covers local, national and international news every day of the week in place of a state-based bulletin from Nine. Similarly, NBN Television produces a one-hour bulletin for its entire coverage area, NBN News, which includes local, national, and international news on weekdays. A half-hour bulletin is shown on weekends.
Prime Television produce weekday local bulletins in Albury-Wodonga, Orange/Dubbo, Tamworth and Wagga Wagga, as well as in Western Australia under the name GWN News. In other areas, it produces two-minute news updates to fulfil quota requirements.
Southern Cross Television in Tasmania, like its competitor WIN News produce a 30-minute bulletin each day of the week. Southern Cross also produce a 30-minute news program on weeknights in the Spencer Gulf/Broken Hill area of South Australia. For the remote central and eastern Australia license area, Imparja Television produces eight one-minute Imparja News Update bulletins each day alongside a weekly magazine program, Footprints, on Friday nights.
Southern Cross Ten, similar to Prime Television in some areas, air two-minute local news updates for each of its coverage areas.
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 7.00pm rather than 6.30pm on WIN and NBN stations. For similar reasons, Seven Queensland shows Today Tonight at 4.30pm in place of the network's 4.30 News bulletin.
Many dual-network affiliates, such as WIN WA, show a combination of two network's programming at differing times of the week. Prime and GWN choose to replace nearly all Seven Network programs between midnight and 6am with infomercials, and along with Southern Cross Ten also replace 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.
See also
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