… it all goes back to the flawed decision to adopt “aggregation” more than thirty years ago … DoTaC admitted in their paper that none of the three models really worked, but politics prevailed and the “least worst” was implemented … now regional television is all but dead and should be euthanised to put it out of its misery …
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The previous status quo was untenable too; you can’t keep treating people outside of the metro capitals as second class citizens, nor should the monopoly that a single commercial TV station had be something to want to keep. Competition is a good thing, but it needs proper regulation.
In some ways TV (and other media) is more important in the more rural areas.
Regional broadcasters being separately owned than their affiliated metro networks is unsustainable, but the metros along with the rest of the traditional media is suffering financially anyway, so let’s not blame aggregation for regional TV’s financial issues.
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Exactly. Also, would regional viewers really have been better off if the status quo of only having one commercial broadcaster continued after the Late 1980s/Early 1990s? The experience of the smaller solus markets (Regional SA, Mildura, Griffith) seems to suggest that we still would’ve seen ownership consolidation and the gradual fading away of localism during the Late 1990s/Early 2000s.
Perhaps aggregation in some of the smaller regional markets should’ve been more like what happened in Tasmania (two commercial channels initially, third network + additional services with Digital TV) but I don’t think you can really say that Canberra or other major regional markets were really well served by just one commercial channel.
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… nope, the alternative that was put up by the regional stations themselves to add a second and then third channel to their existing service would still have given regional television viewers the same choice but without the excessive financial pain … it was called Multi Channel Services (MCS) … but that was rejected by Hawke …
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I agree. Why does SCA carry a channel of religious crap when they should be taking 9Rush (which will attract more viewers and more advertisers) instead. I’m sure in time 9Rush will show some Australian programming.
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I agree with that.
Should be shut down!
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and replaced with 9Rush so that country viewers can see it too!
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Because then you still have a monopoly
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… but at least, in the first instance (until Keating abolished the 2-station rule), a locally-owned one that provides a locally-run service to viewers … now we’re heading for another kind of monopoly where there are only three owners across the whole of Australia and the decisions about what a viewer can watch are made in Sydney (or New York) …
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They show their Australian phone numbers!
Phone numbers are not notable
Channel should be taken off and replaced with 9rush
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I’m guessing SBN pays SCA a carriage fee so it generates revenue for SCA
On the other hand there is not enough ad revenue in regional markets to support 9Rush
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Thanks for pointing out something I was already aware of. That’s why I put the ! at the end of my comment.
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Under an option that was preferred by the broadcasters, we’d have ended up where we are now once the moratorium on owning multiple licences was ended
and protected their own investments and keeping the ad market limited to one player - thats not to suggest it was necessarily a bad option
Splitting out Mildura and Griffith were possibly poor long-term decisions in hindsight
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… the Queensland model in particular also tied in the RCTS, QSTV, which was jointly owned by the Queensland regional stations and the three Brisbane metro stations which would have provided a much more cohesive approach across the entire state than aggregation turned out to be …
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That’s exactly the reason I’d be saying it is. As much as 9Rush would be great or in our case in Tas 7Flix (SBN is on the 7 mux here) I’d say that the money coming in would be a big deciding factor. I don’t know anybody that watches it, including Christians - they have plenty of other sources where they get things from especially now as most churches have had to go online for streaming.
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Surely even most Christians would have to agree that SBN (which miraculously, I haven’t had the opportunity of watching via a terrestrial FTA signal yet) and other “seed faith” channels are a load of rubbish?
Aside from that point, you’re right about SCA’s retransmission of SBN being all about money!
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Yep, exactly. Well certainly the ones that I know but also because it’s so unlike anything that the churches are like but I digress.
It would be good for all the extra channels to be in the regional areas but if they can’t fund it from advertising revenue then I can’t see them happening unfortunately.
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Wonder how long the SBN contract runs for…
Yea unfortunately these channels can’t be run as a public service. It’s awesome that so many smaller cities and markets get over 15 FTA channels as it is. Not all markets have enough revenue to support all channels
But they can be viewed via 9Now and 7Plus, no?