General TV History

If you look closely enough, you’ll probably find that it’s Nine’s Movie Opener with WIN’s logo slapped on top! :wink:

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Still my favourite movie opener.
Wish they’d bring back something similar! :frowning:

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National Nine News Perth - Experience Speaks for Itself Promo (2006):

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Today marks 30 years since aggregation occurred in Canberra & Wollongong.

Credit: @Mechsta

Credit: ‘easyflicks’

Credit: ‘jmoul79’

Credit: ‘jmoul79’

Credit: ‘TasTV Archive’

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No backing music, sounds creepy.

‘member of the Nine network’, Bruce must not have liked that.

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I imagine things were a lot different 30 years ago, back then WIN had only just expanded outside of its heritage Wollongong and South Coast market.

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I think in those days it was a badge of honour for Bruce

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Bruce Gordon probably got on better with Alan Bond & Kerry Packer than some of the Nine Network’s more recent management?

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…a badge of honour and Kerry Packer was a personal friend he needed to keep close. Bruce would’ve realised the writing was on the wall for regional television and would’ve had his sights on expanding the WIN empire as aggregation rolled out across the nation. It would’ve been clear, even at that early stage, some regions wouldn’t be able to sustain three competing commercial stations and he would need to grow to survive and align himself with a strong affiliate partner.

When the clock struck midnight I was sitting right in front of the television. For some reason I was most interested in how Capital would look so I watched Capital and recorded Prime. I lived in WIN territory and the on air look had already been defined. I remember being disappointed the picture quality wasn’t as crisp and sharp as that of the metro stations being received through the VHF antenna.

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This was one of the first information flyers I got about aggregation. It came from Regional Television Australia, which was (I think) a lobby group representing all regional stations. This was probably dated about 1987.

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did Capital come on air in Wollongong with a lot of fuss? A big promo or welcome announcement? Would be interesting to know what was the first program, as Capital in Canberra was running movies after the Academy Awards telecast: https://televisionau.com/classic-tv-guides/tv300389

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That last Q&A point is interesting - the idea that SA/WA might be aggregated to include the capital city stations.

I doubt you would have seen the metro Perth/Adelaide stations being thrilled about the cost of rolling out services to all the regional markets, but perhaps the most interesting potential scenario would have been having an aggregated WA market - with GWN becoming the third Perth station instead of NEW-10.

My memory of it is really vague. I think there was just the opening message from Bob Hawke to regional viewers and a rebadged Network Ten season launch promo. I don’t think there was even a welcome message from Capital’s owners. I think the station just crashed into whatever programming the Canberra station was running at the conclusion of the formalities. Nothing like the elaborate MTV launch party WIN aired in Canberra when they began transmission.

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I recall Southern Cross did even less in launching in Shepparton before crashing mid-program into the network feed

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I would have been surprised if there was such a group, as the majority of stations were against aggregation.

I’m not sure exactly what “Regional Television Australia”'s role was. It might have been a sales arm for the regional stations or possibly a representative body like Free TV Australia nowadays.

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I always thought it was a representative body.

This is the only other thing I got from Regional Television Australia at the time. It was a listing of addresses and telephone numbers for each regional station in Australia. It was a great resource as otherwise the only way to get such information was to trawl through regional telephone directories, etc. This was years before the internet

(apologies for the rusty staple mark on the Compliments slip. It has been over 30 years in storage!)

regionaltelevisionaustralia

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Another piece of aggregation paraphernalia which I think I’ve posted here before. A sales brochure from Prime Television, advertising the opening of sales offices in Wollongong and Canberra. And, it would seem a premature announcement of an upcoming arrangement to purchase Queensland stations SEQ/MVQ (Sunshine Television) which did not eventuate.

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