For licensing purposes, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (the ACMA) must decide which … services should be considered to be the primary commercial television broadcasting service (Primary Service) of a commercial broadcaster.
Since January 2009, commercial broadcasting licensees have commenced new digital multi-channels such as ‘ONE’, ‘GO!’ and ‘7TWO’. The introduction of multi-channelling has created a two-track regulatory system for commercial television broadcasting services, in which a number of obligations apply to the analog service and its digital simulcast, but not to other digital multichannels.
To ensure that the regulatory provisions of the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 (BSA) can be applied, one of the services of a commercial broadcaster has to be identified as the ’core commercial television broadcasting service‘ (core service).
ACMA has “declared” the Primary Commercial Television for each broadcaster in every area of Australia. This was a long process with public submissions called for etc.
So each area may have a different result. Examples are
For WIN, this means that whatever is broadcast on the TV service known as WIN (ie LCN 8) is the primary TV service. So if WIN starts broadcasting TEN programs on the current WIN TV channel that will be their primary service (by law).
SCA will have to arrange for quite a few changes to theirs as they will no longer be “Southern Cross TEN”.
The new WIN/Ten agreement specifically mentions ACT but the recent Southern Cross/Nine affiliation deal does not. So what will happen on Canberra TV on July 1? Will one company carry both Nine and Ten signals?
I wouldn’t read anything into what specific places were or wernt mentioned in the PR - Canberra is sub-market of the much greater licence area of Southern NSW
A whole sub-market was missed in the SCTen announcement…
Thanks for that! I hadn’t really thought of it like that, so it’s good to read your perspective!
Keeping all that in mind, not swapping LCNs is going to make the already confusing change ridiculously confusing for the average viewer.
Especially considering the lack of advertising about the change.
The refusal to swap LCNs leads me to the opinion that WIN may be planning to keep their own branding. That plus refusing to change the LCN is as if WIN is trying to fool viewers into thinking it’s still the same channel with no changes.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see viewers tuning in to LCN 8 on Thursday 30 June to watch the Thursday night NRL, then tuning in the following night and wondering why the football isn’t on and wondering why WIN is showing something different.
The wording of that release makes it sound to me like that is the plan, WIN continuing on, broadcasting TEN programming, with Nine moving over to the joint venture.
That sort of viewer reaction has precedent - ie watching a channel out of habit. The number of times it has been said that it is hard to change viewing inertia when people are used to watch one channel, program or news service. It think WIN wanting to keep the 8 LCN is mostly to do helping their local news services. It also means that for WIN viewers there probably won’t need to be any retuning.
At rough guess
8 - 10-WIN 80 - 10HD 81 - ONE 82 - Eleven
Not sure about the rest - possibly:
83 - 10
84 - Spree or bring back Gold 2
85 - TVSN
86 - Gold
88 - Eleven
Now that an affiliation deal with TEN has been signed, and with WIN planning to keep the LCN 8 values, I would not be surprised to see WIN start advertising TEN programming over the next week or 2.
As was mentioned earlier, if WIN is going to keep the 8 values, I’d hope SCA would somehow be able to pick up the 9 values.
I was actually thinking something among these lines, loosely based on Ten and SCA’s current LCNs:
8: Ten/WIN
81: One
83: Ten/WIN HD
88: Eleven
…and maybe for the rest:
80: Ten/WIN (duplicate LCN)
84: TVSN
85: Spree TV (possibly with new branding because the channel is currently branded as “15 Spree TV” in metro areas)
86: GOLD
87: One or Eleven (duplicate LCN)
Also…if someone was willing to predict that GOLD might be transmitted on the Network Ten multiplex in metropolitan areas as a result of this WIN/Ten affiliation deal (along with some WIN-produced programing moving to Network Ten - eg: Fishing Australia, Alive & Cooking), I probably wouldn’t bet against them.
Love Shack is a six episode series being shot in Southern Tasmania, with the first episode shown in Tasmania yesterday on WIN TV at 5:30 pm, 22 May 2016. It will then air nationally on the WIN regional network the following week.
Summary of what is happening in terms of Regional TV for WIN and Southern Cross from July 1:
Southern Cross will broadcast NINE (including 9GO and 9GEM and later 9HD and 9life) into its ALL of its already existing markets EXCEPT Northern NSW (Nine broadcast their as 9NBN) and Tasmania (WIN maintain).
Southern Cross will continue to broadcast Seven (including 7TWO and 7Mate) into:
Tasmania
Regional SA (Spencer Gulf/Broken Hill)
Southern Cross will Continue to broadcast Ten (plus 11 and ONE) into the following areas:
Tasmania (will continue as a joint venture with WIN)
Regional SA (SPencer Gulf/Broken Hill)
Northern NSW
WIN have won the rights to broadcast TEN (plus ONE and 11) into ALL of its current 26 broadcast (this includes Tasmania joint venture) markets (including Regional SA (Mt Gambier/Riverland where it broadcasts all 3 and Regional WA where it has a joint venture arrangement with Prime7)
WIN will continue to broadcast Nine (Plus 9life, 9GEM and 9GO) into:
