Nine (NBN)

Television Regional and Community Television
2194

There are countless reasons why this would never happen.

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2195

Another point to the likely acquisition of the NBN licence by WIN.

So given Bruce Gordon, as the owner of WIN, is a billionaire, I doubt heā€™ll worry too much about ratings or anything in regards to NNSW. I think heā€™ll just be happy heā€™s finally gotten his prized NNSW Nine affiliation for $16 mil (which is probably a pretty small amount of money to him), and as the largest regional market, it also thus completes his Australia wide regional footprint (aside from Remote Central/Eastern and the 7 owned GTS/BKN and RTS/SES SA licences).

As long as heā€™s not carrying losses (which I doubt will happen regardless of what will happen with the NNSW news), thatā€™s probably all heā€™ll care about it.

2196

The only possible issue with NBN re-branding as WIN is that northern NSW has only known WIN to be a 10 brand on channel 5. However, once viewers realise WIN is a Nine affiliate, then all will be good. I think what they should do, is air a promotion advising NBN will now be known as WIN, if the rebranding occurs.

2197

If the sale gets approval, I daresay that the reset will be no later than 31 December 2026, with 3 dates before then possible. 30 June 2026, the date of the proposed finalisation. 31 August 2026, possibly a reset leading into NRL finals and a reset leading into end of ratings period (also noting the date immediately following it was anniversary when Ten Northern NSW was rebranded WIN in 2017 - although out of the 3 dates least likely) and 30 November 2026 as its the end of the ratings and gives the opportunity for a Summer reset.

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2198

I wouldnā€™t totally discount 1 July either. That will depend on how ready WIN will be to take over eg. do their own ad playout, new studios / control rooms for news (assuming that comes out of Wollongong etc).

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2199

No - and honestly, the brand should have been retired when they adopted Nine more broadly (outside of news), the current arrangement is a bit of a mess.

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2200

One thing I hope WIN does is keep working with the University of Newcastle to get the NBN archive preserved. So stuff like this can be viewed by people for a long time to come:

This is the doco Sandakan The Untold Story from 1994. It won a Logie Award for most outstanding achievement by a regional station, the 2nd last time it was awarded.

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