If it was to consolidate two broadcasters in the same area - I couldn’t see why the ABT would block the purchase. CBN and RVN/AMV were purchased, with CBN and RVN becoming one. RTQ and DDQ/SDQ were the same. TVT and TNT were separated after being owned by the one company.
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This is veering into “what if” territory - the reality is we probably don’t know
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I think those happened after the “two station” maximum rule was lifted.
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Which I dare say happened out of necessity. The regional stations had to team up under new owners and that rule had to go.
Southern NSW had 4 stations - CBN/CWN, RVN/AMV, CTC and WIN. Two had to be combined.
Same with Queensland - TNQ, MVQ/SEQ, RTQ, DDQ/SDQ. 4 had to be combined, 5 if MVQ and SEQ weren’t combined earlier.
Northern NSW and Victoria - no such issues.
GMV/BTV were already under one owner and callsign (RTV then VTV) and had been programmed together for a while. Ditto BCV/GLV. AMV was split from RVN.
NRN/RTN and NEN/ECN just had to be administratively combined. NBN was just NBN doing NBN things. 
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And i suspect there was pressure from the big players like Packer etc who were also wanting to expand their networks rather than be limited to the 2 station rule
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Good point.
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The SES/Six Network partnership was only for National sales, and this was aided by largely similar program schedules. There was also a link from BTV to SES to on-pass programs that BTV obtained from Melbourne, but this became redundant when Network’s programming went onto the satellite.
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Fun fact about SES-8: They lost a lot of their viewership after Vic Aggregation in 1992. A huge percentage of Mt Gambier homes quickly installed high-gain VHF and UHF antennas to receive TV from Mt. Dundas (VTV-11, BCV-31, and AMV-34).
Mt Gambier didn’t get their own supplementary commercial channel until 2004 iirc.
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That would be WIN Mt. Gambier (aka MGS-41).
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WIN was already the solus operator… they launched WIN-10 on UHF… mostly a relay of Ten Adelaide.
I think only a few Seven Network programs were shown on the main VHF channel as WIN was mostly Nine aligned there as well.
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Worth noting too that MGS-41 on analogue was launched (I think) in the same year that the SES-MGS digital simulcast on channel 32 went to air. It was all happening then!
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Southern Cross TV8 wasn’t a “rival” to Six Network as such, they are network partners, the Six and TV8 Networks shared a lot of programming in the early 80s, such as Thursday Night Live, Showbiz 82/83, Breezin’ and a few other shows. The Six Network’s saw RVN/AMV as a rival because AMV had a large overlap to GMV’s viewing area, and AMV did not take the above mentioned Six/TV8 programmes.
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There were some notable differences in programming between TV8 and Six Network at times. Often one would be months ahead on episodes of A Country Practice and other serials.
In the year or two before Aggregation, there were very marked differences between the two due to contracts with respective Metro affiliates. I probably watched more GMV-6 from Bendigo in 1991 than I did in previous years…
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Would also have to take into account AMV also had to serve two states as part of RVN/AMV. New South Welshmen are different to Victorians.
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SES 8 Mount Gambier did to an extent too. Could be picked up in Western Victoria
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In the few days leading up to aggregation at the end of 1991, there were only a few articles in the “Port Macquarie News”. I guess partly because NBN was the only really new entrant given NRTV already had a good signal from Coffs and didn’t start broadcasting from Middle Brother until late Jan 1992.
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TV down on the Bellarine was always weird. Ghostly C31 coverage and intense ABC interference down in Queenscliff, I remember.
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I was at uni in Rocky from 1985-1987 and RTQ used Seven National News from Brisbane (I think it was Ian Hyslop, Nev Roberts and Glenn Taylor?)
But they also had Good Morning Australia from 10.
(I think that’s right?)
I’m pretty sure I also recall ACA but perhaps at 7.00pm?
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Earlier they had taken QTQ because that was the only option available with just one microwave link along the coast they had to take what SEQ was taking.
Later in January 1990 they switched to TVQ on the same day the Bruce Paige started reading 6pm news for 10.
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That seems a bit unfair? Who paid for the links? Did SEQ pay more for the rights because they got to choose?
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