Totally agree but if you’re producing TV news updates for a commercial broadcaster who won’t spend a dime on even a cheap tripod, you don’t have time to go out and do on-the-road journalism. Pretty much your bulletins are going to contain media release content, maybe follow up on what the ABC is doing, rip content from local newspapers and whatever information the Weather Bureau has given you. It’s a position which in theory can be done from anywhere. You won’t win Walkley Awards by writing for news updates.
Imparja have successfully lobbied to not even put Closed Captioning on their main channel due to cost (which is a requirement of every free-to-air broadcaster across Australia). You have to wonder if Nine is taking 50% of their revenue as well when aligning with Ten would fit Central Australia’s demographics better.
Imparja was given a reduction on their closed captioning obligation on the primary channel from 100% down to 90% as they claimed they couldn’t afford to caption their local programming that is “12.5 hours per week, making up approximately 9.92 per cent”.
Referring to multiple repeats of home shopping programs as local content is stretching it.
Ah right. Thanks. Couldn’t remember the fine details. I do remember Imparja was quite receptive to Independent Programming which fit their audience rather than WIN, Prime etc who said nope using the whole ‘Independent stuff takes away the supply of a program which we have paid for through our affiliation agreements’.
Off topic - so Darwin digital Television 10 will have to provide noodle news updates as well as Seven Darwin? Well if that’s the case maybe imparja should do the same. I seem to think there may be financial mismanagement from imparja somewhere
Only if there is a ‘trigger event’ - which is essentially any significant change of control/ownership. There’s very little chance of that happening, especially as the trigger event itself reduces the sale value of the license.
There are very few notable population centres that create a revenue base for Imparja, as by definition they are ‘remote’ - meaning Alice Springs and a handful of mining towns in western Queensland basically need to provide them the advertiser base to run a network.
SCA can spread that cost across all their operations, while as an Independent station Imparja is much more expensive to run on a unit basis by comparison to Seven Central.
As a few people note - the strength of Imparja is that they essentially don’t try and be a profitable TV station, their value is in their function as a sponsor of community events. That would be lost if they were bought out by another operator.
Plus, Imparja would be loss making for any potential purchaser - you wouldn’t want it for free as it is a losing proposition.
Does Imparja (and potentially, also SC7 and CDT10) through its various channels provide different commercial windows for various states or do they all get the same commercials? Do people watching via VAST in Victoria get the same ads as those watching in places like Tennant Creek, for instance?
I realise the number of people watching on VAST may not be enough to justify a separate commercial feed but it might mean that viewers in Victoria etc at least get some relevant advertising (particularly state government messaging re covid) rather than ads for more far flung places.
As far as I know, Imparja has just one advertising feed. I’ve had the privilege of seeing Imparja recently in a caravan and the ads seem to be all NT focussed.
I understand there’s 5 Imparja signals (Imparja North, Imparja South, 9GO! North, 9GO! South and 9GEM North/South)
I think it’s still possibly the case North airs Nine News Queensland, while South airs Nine News Sydney.
I remember watching ads for far reaching places like Tennant Creek and Katherine while in Port Arthur on VAST so I’d say unless you’re not in a major regional centre (Alice Springs or Mt Isa) the advertising is not directly targeted at you.
It doesn’t work that way.
If a self-help / council owned retransmitter is used in an area that is and has been historically been part of the remote license area (which has been set since the Aurora days) , that’s the channels they get.
Apollo Bay in VIC is probably the most interesting example of this in action.
I’m guessing this is referring to Wye River having repeaters of the Melbourne stations (HSV/GTV/ATV) while the surrounding transmitters relay the regionals (AMV/BCV/VTV)
There are a handful of exceptions where ACMA and the government has allowed out of area terrestrial transmitters. Crookwell is in the remote licence area but after a lot of hassle managed to secure government funding for the southern NSW commercial stations to broadcast in the town.