I think this is probably the closest thread for tangents about unintended consequences of WIN shutting down the Ten services in regional SA and Griffith have, as it’s kinda all about the ownership rules.
I think WIN have cracked open a door Seven can walk through with this action.
They have to surrender a license to fully shut down. The supplemental licenses are full complete licenses - they are in the channel plan and handed back to be allocated again should someone wish to activate them.
There is nothing to my mind that would stop Seven coming in and seeking to purchase those newly abandoned licenses - and then directly enter these markets. They would instantly dominate the regional SA market and keep 100% instead of handing anything to WIN, likely making up the costs of transmission.
The voices test and SCA’s radio operations in those regions could be a factor, but I don’t think a voices test triggers when something isn’t a net change of voices, a takeover yes, but there’s no change to the public’s choices here, so they could make the argument.
Obviously the intended use would be that Ten should buy these licenses and operate Ten services directly, which I hold out some hope would be the outcome in Tasmania - but I can see the economics not working for them, Ten rates worse in regional areas compared to metro, and I’d suspect the demographics are more comfortable with streaming.
But for Seven, regional SA is basically a perfect market, and if they can do a little manoeuvring to get themselves in control of their own licenses there, and not deal with how fickle WIN are given they have a conflict of interest in being both a Nine shareholder and operator of Seven/Ten services.
Also - where’s that Freeview “Project Mildura” box? Just buy up the stock of old Hubbl boxes and flash them with something generic.
It always comes down to money. The cost of entering the market, establishing their own transmitters or upgrading what’s already there if needed would be pretty strong cases. If WIN is struggling to make money in these markets, what makes you think another broadcaster will?
With the affiliate deals, the regional broadcasters took on all the risk while the metro networks got paid no matter what. If Seven decided to enter those markets, they would have to take on that risk.
I think only Seven content can make money in that market, so it may as well be Seven doing it directly - rather than WIN getting a cut. Synergy with their other regional SA operations would make transmission itself be the only incremental cost for adding those two markets, and they could do local sales via their existing radio staff.
Depends more on how bad their deal with WIN is - and the risk that poses to them. If their AFL rights require them to broadcast into these places, it would be worth a moderate investment to eliminate the risk of WIN causing a breach.
… oh the news department is still “obese”, if and when that changes Aunty can return to being a real “broadcaster” like its Charter says rather than merely, in Mark Scott’s own words, a “news organisation” …
What is to say WIN have already sent the un-used transmitters to other markets to replace clapped out transmitters elsewhere, unless they were clapped out already? Remember WIN used to run 3 Mux’s in all of these solus market areas, apart from the shutdown Mildura JV. My question is, as the current transmission of both Seven and Ten in these WIN markets currently share the one Mux, will Seven have to bear the full cost of the WIN Mux that was formerly shared with Ten? Am sure Seven would baulk at that? Fed Govt intervention is required here as WIN has all the cards here to potentially keep competition out. Was the MDV JV licence formally surrendered to the ACMA? And do these supplementary licences in solus markets require formal surrendering to the ACMA as well? And if surrendered, is there an obligation for the ACMA to make them available again to any other parties? Am sure Seven would rather operate these services themselves direct instead of relying on a 3rd party? Can understand if there is no interest from TEN. It will all go the way of streaming eventually with a possible satellite only nightlight service.
They need to surrender them because broadcasting content is a condition of the license. The MDV licenses are no longer listed in the register but are still in the channel plan.
Generally the ACMA operate on a demand led basis - so they won’t advertise “hey look there’s a spare frequency here”, but allocations live on in the license area plan - even if the license isn’t applied to someone.
I assume that the costs to WIN were their previous ones around traffic and sales staff, they were making their own Ten network feed with local advertising.
They likely put to Ten the idea of Ten paying them for access to their spectrum in order to show a dirty feed, and Ten rejected that. The idea of it being a cost to Ten, rather than just being a near 0% revenue share affiliation deal, probably is the only thing seeing it shut down, as obviously Ten was a minimal incremental cost to WIN to transmit when there’s spectrum sharing in place.
Seven I guess probably agreed to a negative affiliation fee deal - owing to the risk with broadcast contracts, and then an agreement for Seven to seemingly provide a unique regional SA feed which they can put their own ads on and likely make money from, though not sure what it means in Griffith given the undoing of previously providing the Wagga dirty feed and upsetting local advertisers.