I was making the point that if 9NBN started using LCN 9 & 90-99, then overlapping areas with Nine Gold Coast and/or Nine Sydney would shove the weakest/last scanned broadcaster into the 350-399 range. It’s best for 9NBN to keep LCN 8 & 80-89 to avoid this. On the contrary, Imparja uses LCN 9 & 90-99 as they are more likely to overlap with regional broadcasters using LCN 8 & 80-89. You can see it’s designed for overlapping areas.
But there’s nothing to stop NBN from using LCN 9x from the Hunter to the QLD border and retaining LCN 8x in overlap areas like the Central and Gold Coasts.
That is what 7QLD does.
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As far as the LCNs are concerned, maybe this could be workable?
9 range of LCNs:
*Nine Newcastle
*Nine North West/New England
*Nine Mid North Coast
*Nine Far North Coast
8 range of LCNs:
*NBN Nine Central Coast
*NBN Nine Gold Coast
Even if a signal can probably be received in parts of the Central Coast (I don’t think any part of Sydney metropolitan area, apart from perhaps the Northern Beaches would be able to receive Newcastle TV on any regular or non-tropo basis), I personally think that you could probably get away with having NBN Newcastle using the 9 range of LCNs.
Ideally, you’d keep some form of unique branding and add a few more unique programs on the Gold/Central Coast stations as a point of difference from the main feed(s) of Nine’s channels. Personally, I think that Nine would be wise to stop “double dipping” and turn off one of the two (Nine or NBN) signals in the overlap regions but I doubt that will ever happen.
Wouldn’t some TVs just have two LCN 9 channels though rather than using 350?
How would they know which one to tune to if you pressed 9 on your remote? If they did allow it, they’d be non-compliant with Australian standards.
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The proposed solution in an early version of the LCN plan was to do things like assigning WIN Ballarat to LCN 801 and WIN Bendigo to LCN 802 - so that if you scanned in both, you’d still be able to select logically assigned channel LCNs. The idea predates the current spread of multichannels, and would result in a huge number of duplicates - but would work well in overlap areas.
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Actually, I had a set top box, back in the early days of Australian DTV that wasn’t totally Aus compliant that would do just that.
If the channel didn’t have an LCN descriptor (which some often did during the early days) it’d put them in the 350 channel range, but it would double up if they had the same LCN.
As most have probably noticed, the ABC & SBS use the same LCN’s both regionally & in metro, it’s generally successful & doesn’t really matter in overlap areas because the program is exactly the same. The strongest (or sometimes the first frequency) is scanned into the set LCN, & the second frequency is scanned into the 350 block, so you just ignore or delete the weakest channels.
I used to be able to receive Sydney (VHF main TX’s) & Newcastle (UHF Main TX’s) DTV channels, on that old STB, SBS was never a problem cause I couldn’t get it on UHF from Sydney, but the ABC used to double up the LCN’s. When you used the 2 button, the first channel would load but you couldn’t watch the second one, if you used the up & down button, you could scroll between ABC Sydney & ABC Newcastle.
To avoid this, I had to go through & delete the weakest channel LCN, or upon tuning the STB, manually lockout/scan the channels, to avoid the second one being listed.
The same thing can occur in the same market, where 2 or more transmitters/translators are receivable, (same LCN’s, same programs, but different channel parameters in the signal).
The problem with using the same LCN’s in regional & metro overlap areas comes when channels are different, (different programs &/or adverts), who gets the top LCN spots, & who gets relegated to the 350 channel block? It may not always be the metros get the top spot, but neither would like being dumped to the 350 block.
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What’s interesting is she tweets BNE and NNSW rating daily, and NBN News is mostly the #1, #2 or #3 show of the night in the NNSW market
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Mostly due to the size of their heritage Hunter market I would think, whereby there is no other choice for local news.
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I agree.
Personally I think it would be very interesting to see a breakdown of the ratings across each Northern NSW sub-region (mainly when it comes to local news, especially in the North West and on the North Coast where there’s direct competition during the 6pm hour on weekdays) but of course I’m sure that’s something the eyes of the public will most likely never get to see.
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Here’s the thing, All the vast services use the metro numbering so people who live on the fringe of both regional & remote need the numbers to be different just like fringe metro to non metro people do.
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I didn’t think NBN was on VAST? That their only VAST presence is their news bulletins which is on a dedicated VAST local news channel that is in the 4xx LCN range?
Further to that, if there are viewers who can get both VAST and regional TV channels, then they shouldn’t be getting VAST in the first place.
VAST is retransmitted terrestrially in many areas.
In the NNSW the local markets are broken down as
Northern Rivers 987k
Newcastle 803k
Tamworth/Taree 354k
So to have the #1 show in the NNSW market NBN News must do very well in the Northern Rivers and Newcastle markets.
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Thanks for the figures, Kick-It!
I reckon that Northern Rivers figure would have to include the Gold Coast?
And the Newcastle figures probably include the Central Coast?
If so, you could lop 500k off the Nth Rivers popn, and 300k off the Newcastle figure.
As it appears that none of the 3 regionals get much of a look in those overlap areas against the Brissy or Sydney channels.
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Thanks for the figures, Kick-It!
I reckon that Northern Rivers figure would have to include the Gold Coast?
And the Newcastle figures probably include the Central Coast?
If so, you could lop 500k off the Nth Rivers popn, and 300k off the Newcastle figure.
As it appears that none of the 3 regionals get much of a look in those overlap areas against the Brissy or Sydney channels.
From the maps and post codes here RegionalTAM it would seem that yes, Gold Coast City is included in Northern Rivers but Central Coast is NOT included in the Newcastle market.
The Northern Rivers market includes Gold Coast just as much/equally as Brisbane market does. Both sell advertising for GC market. Although I agree, locals would prob watch the Brisbane stations as apposed to the NNSW stations by a margin of 4:1 or so
Those post codes listed include some for the Central Coast . The population overlap with Sydney is approx 330,000.
Yes, it would appear from the link (thanks again) that Central Coast is only included from Wyong (2259) and north from there, but not around Gosford (2250).
There are alot of houses around the Budgewoi (2262), Lakehaven and Gorokan (both 2263) areas that only have Newcastle TV aerials, so there probably isn’t a lot in that 800k figure that you can exclude for the overlap.
So yes, that does go to show just how much influence the Newcastle market has on the overall Northearn NSW ratings shares.
…
But I think only the regionals are allowed to sell local ads on the Central and Gold Coasts.
I just hope NBN becomes “9 News Northern NSW” soon - with 9 News music, graphics, set and formula.
Have a “live” backdrop of various Northern NSW cities and images, the way 7 Queensland does.