Mt Coot-tha made the news tonight. This is outside Nine. Next closest tower is Seven with Ten and ABC in the distance.
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One thing I’ve always wondered - how is “broadcast delay” achieved these days (ie. ensuring the feed from the playout centre for SA, WA etc is appropriately delayed)?
Do the affiliates (chiefly the Hub) receive their feeds live and have to action the delays themselves?
Everyone will use the localised feeds for their relevant state (ie, they’ll use the Sydney feed for NSW, Perth for WA etc) - that way any localised programming (news, special programs etc) goes out state wide.
** edit, finished my thought!
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Australian Financial Review reports Ten is fighting in the NSW Supreme Court against the transfer of its stake in satellite owner and operator TX Australia joint venture to Nine and Seven for just $1. Under the shareholders’ agreement of the joint venture partners going into administration, it can trigger TX Australia being valued and allow the other members to buy the other out.
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TXA isn’t a satellite owner or operator. They manage the terrestrial microwave broadcast facilities of the free to air networks and other transmission based companies (radio stations plus police, ambo, fire 2 ways etc.)
Price Waterhouse Cooper valued the license at $40m when Ten went into administration, so apparently Ten are fighting the fact that TXA want to buy Ten out for $1. The theory runs that if that happens then Ten will have to lease space for their broadcast and news gathering receivers at a cost (instead of being a co-owner.)
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Thanks, but - specifically - how to the networks actually delay the feed? Once upon a time someone in Perth was recording programs off a clean feed and playing them back two or three hours later. Nowadays, with all metro markets played out from one location, that broadcast centre must surely work with the same raw feed (ie the programs), inserting the relevant ads, PRGs and promos for each state, but then “delay” the relevant feeds going out to WA, SA etc. Does the delay happen at the broadcast centre or somewhere else down the line?
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a decade ago, Nine in Sydney used to generate a network feed which had black holes in place of the commercial breaks and each of the local stations would insert their own PRG, ad breaks, news breaks etc.
these days at Ten for example, each market plays program segments from server rather than a network feed of any kind. Live programs are different though, where they’ll all take the one program feed to allow for simultaneous switches to backup sources if needed.
The output of that presentation suite (Perth, Adelaide etc) are then fed to the affiliate.
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That’s interesting - and surprising - that Ten don’t use a network feed as such. I remember an instance back in 2004 or 2005 when the wrong episode of Neighbours was transmitted Australia-wide. I assumed the fact this affected each market was due to the fact it was being networked from Sydney and someone put the wrong tape in, or loaded the wrong episode onto the server. Unless the latter is exactly what happened, but the programs are loaded centrally.
Seven, I believe, play everything out from Docklands, including 7 QLD, with no intervention required at the local stations at all (other than sending their news bulletins down the line to Melbourne who switch it into the relevant feed). Nine, I assume, work the same way now.
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All stations use to do their own playout but as a fellow forum user said…only news studio outputs from local stations get fed to playout/pres in either Sydney or Melb for Seven to then to broadcast them to the right region. Its all timed through computer rundowns.
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And indeed it would have been a (wrong) tape networked to all stations via Satellite or DVN. But since the introduction of the multi station play out centres, and server technology for playing the programs, each market’s playlist can play the program itself off the allocated server as its immediately available to all. It’s more flexible that way, for instance if Melbourne’s playlist needed to insert a breaking news update they’re not hamstrung as they were when the breaks had to match Sydney’s, as long as things are lined up again for the next live program.
Still today, if a wrong episode number was scheduled (can happen, especially if a preemption is slipped in somewhere), or a wrong program was ingested against the right number (shouldn’t happen, but happens occasionally with commercials) the wrong thing would air. Down side with server technology is that it’s harder to correct a problem once it’s in progress, compared to videotape.
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They might still do for Imparja and WIN (WDT, MDV, Griffith)
Is Win Pres through Mediahub? Would local ads etc be put in there?
Yes
Out of interest which affiliates get clean feeds from the networks and which ones work off a dirty feed?
I think Prime/GWN and WIN get clean feeds. SC Nine get a dirty feed which causes problems with the wrong news headline banners going out during HotSeat. NBN get a clean version of HotSeat for this reason - I’m not sure about the rest of the schedule.
As for the dairy markets and remote areas I haven’t a clue.
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WIN get a clean feed of TEN except during the weekly disaster recovery testing and Prime would most likely get a clean feed as well.
But other submarkets (Griffith, regional WA’s Nine) etc I think get dirty feeds.
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Clean feeds
Seven
GTS/BKN (Seven Mux)
SCTV Darwin (Seven Darwin, direct feed from HSV)
Prime incl GWN
SCTV Central (Direct feed from HSV)
SCTV Tasmania (Switches between ATN and HSVNine
Imparja
NBNTen
WIN except Win Seven and WIN Nine
Dirty
Seven
WIN SevenNine
All except ImparjaTen
Ten Central
GTS / BKN Ten
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Thanks for that list @melbournefan - are you sure about SC Nine getting a clean feed? As I mentioned above, metro news graphics are seen during Millionnaire in RQLD, and I’ve also seen snippets of Brisbane ads and promos when the timing of the junctions has gone awry. As the SCNine service is known on-air as Nine, I assumed it suited them to take a dirty feed and not have to generate their own PRGs etc.
who gets win 7 and win 9?
Griffith and Eastern SA, I think.
WIN7: Griffith, Eastern South Australia (Riverland/Loxton, Mt Gambier)
WIN9: Griffith, Eastern South Australia (Riverland/Loxton, Mt Gambier), Mildura*, Western Australia*
*Joint ventures with Prime.
When I was in Griffith in 2016 I saw they used dirty feeds on Seven and Nine. Clean feed for WIN TV (Ten) as in their other markets. I assume its the same for the other markets as well.
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