CBS seems to have no interest in buying radio stations, seeing as they are in the final stages of divesting CBS Radio to Entercom. Television and online including CNET are their strengths. So
CNET is owned by CBS??
Yes, for about eight years now.
Reminiscing historyâŚ
With aggregation proposals being put forward in the 1980s, this ABC report notes an interesting alternative (backed by the regional stations). The proposal: existing stations to be granted two supplementary licences (basically, what currently exists in Griffith and the two SA markets). Would certainly have been interesting to see how such a proposal would look today. No doubt stronger local news for a start.
Two options for the same end goal, the first is faster to implement but will have harsh consequences, the second will take slightly longer but will provide a better quality service. No doubt the faster-to-implement service wouldâve won the government brownie points at the election.
Thatâs not quite the experience that happened with WIN having supplementary licences in Mount Gambier and Riverland, and in Griffith. The WIN SA markets lost local news years ago, and does Griffith get any local WIN news anymore?
Southern Cross to their credit have at least maintained local news in its monopoly market in Spencer Gulf/Broken Hill but AFAIK thatâs the extent of local production (with the bulletin presented from Canberra), whereas MCS (multi-channel services) proposed at the time was to have us believe that regional stations would still be pumping out locally made programs.
This was the flyer put out by the regional channels, sometime around 1986:
It should also be noted that the original plan for aggregation was to have smaller markets of 3 commercial channels than what did eventuate. Initially Victoria was going to be covered by 2 aggregated markets. (Potentially: BTV6, BCV8 and STV8 forming one market, and GMV6, AMV4 and GLV8 for the other)
I think Queensland was also intended for 2 markets, while NSW was possibly likely for 3 or even 4 (I canât recall).
The populations for these aggregated markets is where the regional channels got their â400,000â figure from in their flyer. It was only when aggregation was reworked that Victoria and Queensland became one AM (approved market) each, and NSW made into two AMs â hence propping up each to a population of around 1 million â and which then bumped Mildura, Mt Isa and Griffith out of the scheme.
The regionals did put up a fight though. BCV8 in Bendigo apparently tried to knock down aggregation with a sweetener that they would fund the expansion of SBS into the region, hence giving the region at least another channel. Not quite sure that adding SBS would make up for not having 2 other commercial channels⌠but BCV as part of Southern Cross were not too excited about drawing the âshort strawâ and landing Network Ten affiliation 
Even if the alternative option for regional TV aggregation was taken, I think we probably still wouldâve seen corporate consolidation (with larger regional networks being formed) and a reduction in local production at some point.
True. But perhaps the regional consolidation would not have expanded to the extent which it has.
For local news, monopolies would have eliminated competition within markets and perhaps enabled them to financially sustain local news for longer (like GTS/BKN). If benefits of solus markets could be proven in the years before 1996 (promised reorganisation of subchannel ownership), then perhaps they couldâve stayed as solus markets.
A single company having multiple network affiliations wouldâve been terrible; not only would it have removed competition, but also reduce the number of voices, and wouldâve increased costs from the perspective of having to do playout, scheduling, etc. for three networks instead of what happened with their one network across multiple areas (which allowed more shared content, promos, etc.).
There was no competition between commercial TV services to begin with. Each was confined to its own area. The proposed 1996 reorganisation would have sold the two subchannels to competitors, leaving three voices, though this could always have been subject to change. Not sure how the 1996 reorganisation wouldâve gone, placing three competing channels in far smaller markets.
Ideally, what may have happened was the original channel affiliates with a network keeping the subchannels as feeds of the remaining networks. However, there could be potential for a SC-TDT deal where the original channel would have âfirst pickâ of select programming from the remaining networks.
Yes youâre right; I shouldâve said that wouldâve meant less competition compared to what did happen.
I donât recall the Victorian 2 market proposal, it must have been a short lived idea, but certainly Queensland was intended to have two markets.
The early Victorian model put forward by the Government was to have STV, BCV/GLV and BTV/GMV as the competitors. AMV licence area was to become part of SNSW.
It was rumoured that STV was to have some backing by the 10 Network, due to personal connections between them and Eva Presser. Southern Cross and ABS (owner of BTV//GMV) objected to STV in the mix, as it represented a windfall gain to them in audience expansion, where as SC and ABS had to spend a lot of money on little, if any, audience gain. STV were also the first station in Australia to indicate they would opt for Aggregation from the start, rather than going the path of an initial multi channel system, as the Government had dictated a one in, all in stance for each approved market. In the end, the Government agreed with SC and ABS and took STV out of the plan and replaced with Primeâs AMV market. Also, contrary to some belief, affiliation with the metro networks was not necessarily part of the government plan with aggregation, stations would be free to follow whatever programming strategy they wanted, but it soon became apparent that a bidding war for the best programs was not going to be sustainable.
Yes i think it was. Iâll try and find the article it was in an old B&T magazine from about 1986.
The Senate aiming to pass the media reform bills tonight.
It wasnât passed tonight.
Now expected to be passed on Thursday.
Good news on the reach rule, but everything else about this is awful.
Totally ineffective to spend $60.4 million on small publishers if itâs capped at $1 million each. How many âsmall and regional publishersâ do we actually have in this country? I donât buy that this is a valid trade off for dropping the 2 out of 3 rule, which is now set to cloud over the Ten case and give the likes of Gordon and Murdoch an ego boost in thinking that their dismal proposal is worth the creditorsâ money.
Time will tell if the big mergers are to take place.
we had a new Sunday paper here in Newcastle which closed down the other day after just 11 issues leaving the owner âguttedâ - it employed many fine journos who were retrenched up here from either News Corp or Fairfax.
I was flabbergasted as it was an outstanding read.