I think that was just a generic name assigned to those services being delivered via Aussat i.e. GWN, Imparja, QSTV.
I should try and dig out the high school project i did when Aussat launched. I’ve got it somewhere
… Remote Commercial Television Service, not a cent of government support, but Bob did give an extra $4.2mil to the Bicentennial Authority which happened to be the cost of a year’s rent on the AUSSAT satellite and the BA happened to give it to Imparja …
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And another question I uploaded a TV guide in another thread from that Longreach newspaper for April 1997 that also listed programs for GWN.
Do you happen to know of any reason or how or why they could be legitimately viewed anywhere in Western QLD then? (eg..remote or mining site).
… nope, probably a mistake by the paper, but I was off playing Olympic broadcasting by then so have no real idea …
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From what I read in the page 8 article, that it was esssentially a feed of NQTV . Was ITQ8 broadcasting the same as NQTV at the launch given the common ownership at the time or was ITQ8 still broadcasting alternative programming?
Wasn’t ITQ purchased closer to 1990 or is this incorrect?
February 1990. QTV was then relayed through ITQ after that.
Sorry I was of the understanding that QSTV and ITQ8 were integrated from the QSTV inception. It seems a little weird that Longreach would receive a satellite from NQTV and not be already integrated with ITQ8. But I guess some of the plans didnt seem logical.
I assume that NQTV was the station that was in the best position to operate the service.
Was Mount Isa able to access this service from its inception?
Longreach is a few hundred kilometres from Mt Isa. Probably too far to establish a translator from ITQ. So it was accessible by the satellite service.
It should not have been as it had its own terrestrial commercial channel.
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Unless ITQ changed themselves into a semi satellite of QSTV/NQTV at that time.
… ITQ was always planned to become part of the QSTV satellite feed, the takeover by TNQ just cemented that …
To be more exact Longreach is approx 500 to 600 kms away from Mount Isa. It took me and my family all day to get to longreach from Mount Isa by car. It was in 1986 and only ABC TV was on air at the time.
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Strategically, ITQ8 was geographically best placed to deliver and the then financial stability of TNQ7 was best placed to deliver as the then future owners. Had TNQ7 cemented its position as Nine’s Queensland affiliate partner, the future would have been brighter.
A Nine affiliation would have been interesting and moreso if TNQ7 proceeded to purchase NRN11 as it did regarding NBN3 and their future.
But we have what we have and unfortunately for TNQ7 and QST, the days of their common ownership are gone with QSTV now part of Seven Network.
If you think about ITQ8 and QSTV, the period of 10 years were interesting given they went from being a (prospective) Nine affiliate, to a Ten affiliate to a Seven affiliate.
When regional (non-outback) areas of Queensland got aggregation in 1990, why did ITQ8/QQQ continue to take QTV as a Ten affiliate? If QTV were smart they would have given them a different programme schedule continuing to show the best programmes from Seven, Nine and Ten to make the folks in the outback areas happy. Lucky for ITQ8/QQQ they became a Seven affilate in 1999.
… to do anything else would have cost money and have been extremely operationally difficult …
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They probably took a similar program lineup to QTV in Townsville and cairns in 1990. Then from 1991 for the most part it became a ten affiliate until 1998 when it become a 7 network affiliate
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What was the reason for the affiliation switch to Seven in 1998? Could they have switched earlier or was is related to the launch of TND Seven Darwin? Or Imparja moving into their licence area?
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It was related to Imparja entering the area and the launch of 7 Darwin in 1998
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Wait…what!!!
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Given up to December 1990, TNQ7, ITQ8 and QSTV were all aligned to be a Nine affiliate and with Telecasters buying NRN11 in 1993, if TNQ7 had secured the Nine affiliate and had still bought NRN11, it could have shaken up things in Northern NSW in a similar way to if WIN had purchased NRN11 in 1990-91.
Alas TNQ7 failed to ink a deal and ended up with a 10 network affiliate agreement