I have a soft spot for “Nine Eight Television”, ECN-8 was my first ever long distance TV catch as a youngster growing up in Newcastle.
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I can remember seeing some vertically mounted Band 1/3 antennas aiming north around Newcastle in the 1990s to pick up the Taree signals. Their news intro from the mid 1980’s stated “From the Mid North Coast to the Far North West, from Southern Queensland to the Hunter”.
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Correct, there are still a few around, they are more common in Port Stephens area, particularly around Nelson Bay and Shoal Bay, where it was difficult to get a clear NBN-3 as there were no local relays back then either. There are also some Middle Brother / Taree UHF antennas there as well to get SBS, a clearer NBN and NRTV.
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Hypothetical: Had SCN/Vic TV got their way regional Victoria would have only got two commercial stations with aggregation instead of three.
BCV/GLV (SCN) = Seven network programming (with local news in Bendigo and Gippsland)
BTV/GMV (Vic TV) = cherrypick of Nine and Ten network programming (with local news in Ballarat and Shepparton). That way Vic TV would still be responsible for programming decisions and keep its independence.
Albury (and North East Vic) would have been part of the SNSW market - AMV would be consolidated onto CBN.
But of course that didn’t happen. But SCN got its way in Tasmania with a similar scenario as a tradeoff, that is, having Seven programming and first right of refusal for Ten programmes.
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From what I can gather via the Internet Archive, SBS didn’t transmit from Middle Brother until March 2001, whereas it had been broadcasting in Newcastle since 1985.
Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20000815064936/http://www.sbs.com.au/tvext/tvext_set.html
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I’m sure I’m seen SBS from there around 1996-97, but yes, they didn’t have it at it or before aggregation. I can vaguely recall it interfering with WIN during tropo where I used to live in inner Newcastle around then.
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The logo from ECN8’s short-lived merger with NRN11 (1968/69).
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Was this a copy from HSV7?
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It does look similar to HSV’s mid-sixties logo.
It was formed in 1975 as a response to rising production costs incurred by regional stations.
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The campaign to launch GET to metro advertisers kicked off with advertising across all 3 Sydney and Melbourne commercial channels (possibly other cities, too?)
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Did anything of note come from that case that vision tv launched?
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Quarters the cameraman? 
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Another NBN report on aggregation (from 18:22):
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I couldn’t find anything from a cursory search but I’d say nothing came from it given aggregation went full steam ahead and DDQ found a willing buyer in WIN to take the station over.
I know this thread is titled “pre-aggregation” and maybe that needs to be reviewed… but here’s a review of aggregation “one year on” from AdNews magazine, 20 April 1990 (the same magazine that this article was sourced: Regional TV History (pre-aggregation) - #422 by TelevisionAU)
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I’m not sure if this logo has been shared here before, but this is from a 1976 edition of TV Times. Wish I had a hi res version of it, but have just this thumbnail 
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One search of AustLII came up with this attempt for an injunction from their Federal Court hearing, dated 30 May 1990:
One curiosity to me was the addition of Qintex and Prime’s two licences to the case as respondents. It looks like one argument DDTV were using to attempt to void aggregation as it stood, was to allege that the Seven Network’s affiliation agreements with Prime were to be seen as Qintex being in a position of control of the Prime licences, thus (combined with Qintex’s existing ownership of MVQ/SEQ) breaking the 60% reach rule at the time.
One of the reliefs they were asking for (which they likely had to include for bringing Qintex and Prime into the case) was for an injunction on the renewals of Qintex’s Seven metro stations until their supposed reach rule breach was fixed - which seems like was thrown out on grounds of “the right time to do that is when the renewals actually come up before the ABT”.
I can’t find records suggesting it went to trial, or at least that a decision was handed down if it did - the conclusion suggested the injunction process dragged on, and it’s possible a trial date was not going to happen in 1990. The injunction request was thrown out in any case, and given the Star TV rebrand not that long after this, it sounds like DDTV settled into their fate (which at the time would’ve been stuck with a share of Ten at best, given QTV had snapped up Nine?) fairly quickly.
I guess that was one thing about the Queensland market: you effectively had four operators there [WIN through owning RTQ, and NQ Telecasters up north, the other two] and unlike other markets, four into three was not going to go. The fact that MVQ/SEQ (what eventually became the enlarged Sunshine, STQ) was owned by a metro operator in Skase probably inflamed the situation, and I can only guess part of the intention was more likely to get Skase out of Sunshine than anything else.
If Qintex weren’t in the regional QLD market at all, would DDQ have merged with the Sunshine stations [or at least SEQ… possibly RTQ would have merged with the Mackay station earlier than that], then Vision TV takes a Seven affiliation and everyone would’ve been happy? 
edit: although I could also see why splitting QLD into two approved markets as per the original plan would’ve also been seen as preferable to some… but again, the ownership complications (Skase, but also DDTV having owned TV0/Ten Bris for a bit) made it a funny market regarding who’s interests were where…
Of course, like everything 30 years down the track, anything like that can only be conjecture, and that’s an alternate reality in any case. 
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I remember having a psychedelic sticker of the GET logo I got one summer when I visited Toowoomba. 
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