Mildura was just the tip of the iceberg.
Since Seven now owns regional stations in both Victoria and NSW, it shouldn’t be too difficult to expand the signals into both Mount Gambier and Griffith.
Except they need a licence to broadcast in the region.
Not to mention build a transmitter tower since I doubt WIN will allow them onto their transmitter to try and stifle competition.
I think this is a bit different, Mildura was because of the cost of replacing the transmitter, this is about affiliation fees.
Wouldn’t be surprised if there is an 11th hour deal to keep Seven on air there.
I’m surprised they’ve been cutting local ads, etc from the Seven channels - surely 10 would generate the least amount of revenue.
Generally speaking, Ten’s take of the affiliation deal is lower than Seven and Nine’s.
If you’re not making much on Seven, and Seven is charging you a premium for their product, it’s understandably the one you’d drop.
A spokeswoman for Seven said it was happy to continue negotiating with WIN, and that its deals with the AFL and Cricket Australia would not be affected.
“Seven is disappointed it has not been able to reach an agreement with WIN to broadcast Seven’s content in the Riverland and Griffith,” she said.
Lancaster said WIN was carrying out a broader strategic review of its involvement in “non-core broadcast signals”, naming Network 10 channel broadcasts in regional Western Australia and Tasmania – suggesting there could be more signal closures to come. He said WIN “continues to evolve” as the country’s biggest regional TV network.
A deal between Seven and WIN could still be hammered out between now and the end of the month…
Then Seven Regional’s licence for NSW should be amended to cover the entire state including Griffith. That will ensure similar problems won’t happen again in the future.
This will be an interesting region to watch.
Isn’t the licence for this region run by the single operator (WIN) - can Seven transmit it themselves?
They had no local ads on Seven Griffith and Mount Gambier/Riverland since 1st July 2024. Turns out WIN is trying to shut down other network channels (ones that weren’t sold off to SWM and Network 10) and push viewers over to their main affiliate, that being the Nine Network. First cut the local ads, then shut down the service. The same could happen for 10 Griffith and Mount Gambier/Riverland?
Mount Gambier is the 2nd area in Australia to lose a commercial TV network. Mildura was the first, losing Network 10. This is the beginning of the end for Digital Television as we know it in Australia.
Turns out, WIN don’t care about Seven, they only care about their primary network, that being Nine. Wait until Seven starts rolling out advertisements telling WIN viewers to stream on 7plus instead.
Is it possible WIN will hand the Seven licenses in Griffith and Mount Gambier/Riverland back to the ACMA once they are officially shut down?
Thankfully for Mount Gambier residents though they can pick up the Ballarat channels via the Western VIC transmitter at Mount Dundas (which gets into Mount Gambier itself), though they will need to have a powerful enough antenna and an amplifier on top of that as coverage varies depending on their location, although with the right antenna and amplifier they should have interference-free reception.
What should the average Mount Gambier viewer do in this case? If you happen to also receive WIN Ballarat and 10 HD Ballarat muxes on your TV, you can just delete the channels from those muxes and keep the local 9 and 10 Mount Gambier ones, it’s only the 7 Ballarat mux they need to keep.
For Griffith viewers though, not good news at all. There’s no other TV transmitters around town, the main Griffith transmitter is the only one.
Wait until Seven starts rolling out ads in Griffith and Mount Gambier/Riverland (through ATN-7 Sydney and SAS-7 Adelaide respectively) telling affected viewers to stream on 7plus instead. WIN could also air ads saying the Seven service is winding up in these areas from 1st July 2025, but that’s unlikely given these are now just full-time dirty feeds of the capital city channels.
Almost like back to the future in some ways, with these markets quite possibly joining Mildura in not getting all 3 commercial networks (as was the case pre-digital TV). I fear it’s only the very beginning though, the outlook for regional TV outside the major aggregated markets looks pretty grim (and even then, I wouldn’t say the outlook in the major aggregated markets is all that great either).
At least these days we do have the BVOD services like 9Now/7Plus/10Play so that there is still an alternative way to access this content, and internet speeds are generally fast and stable enough to cope even in more remote areas (with Starlink now an option).
Still, it’s also possible that WIN could just soldier on with shutting down the Seven Network service in these areas, which would save the WIN Network money, at the cost of frustrated residents in these areas complaining about the loss of Seven on their TVs.
What would WIN tell them to do? Stream on 7plus instead. For the real nerds in Mount Gambier, aim for Mount Dundas and pick up Seven Network services from that transmitter.
Yes it is. They also own and operate the Nine and Network 10 TV licenses in these regions.
No they can’t. Unless they obtained a TV license from the ACMA, which would be very costly.
Well said, @Expensive_Horse5538. 
I’d be interested to know if there is any substantial uptick for 10Play in Mildura.
Could be the way of the future in very regional areas, and a hell of a lot cheaper than obtaining a license.
they can’t just change licence area plans at the click of fingers, especially to introduce an additional commercial player into a region.
Maybe it goes off for a few days - but once there’s a missed AFL game, there’ll be enough pressure on WIN that they’ll end up signing something.
They altered legislation to let people in Mildura access VAST to get Ten Central, so that would apply should Seven not be available from WIN, but whether Seven (or the local council) could operate a translator site is something I don’t know, I’ve not read up on the exact detail of the change.
Obviously that doesn’t fully solve the footy situation, given Crows/Power games aren’t on Seven Central, but it’s more reasonable than massive antennas aiming for Western Vic.
I find reception from the Mt Dundas transmitter into Mt Gambier is fine most of the time, you only really lose the signal if there’s bad weather or thunderstorms in the area & it does depend on what part of Mt Gambier you live in. Don’t forget not every household in Mt Gambier has a big VHF antenna and they aren’t that cheap and 7 Ballarat doesn’t broadcast every Crows / Power match, so for a lot of people 7plus will be the only option.
Which is probably what will happen anyway.
Disgruntled viewers in Mount Gambier/Riverland missing their AFL fix on 7 (knowing WIN probably won’t give a damn) will contact their local antenna installers to get massive and powerful high-gain UHF antennas installed and aiming for Western VIC, as well as investing in super powerful amplifiers, all just so they can then watch the footy.
The signal from Mt Dundas is actually in VHF.