… yep when Jan Daniel decided she wanted to go a bit more serious and we created the prime time weekly magazine program “Pieces of Eight” for her, we found someone else to replace her on Teleclub (but I forget her name), when she and production assistant Paul Sommer shacked up and ran away together, Melissa and her mum had been pestering us for ages to give her a gig, so we did … Melissa later went on to become newsreader when SEQ, under Skase ownership, went back to having a local news …
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Interesting perspective, but fast forward to 1991 and aggregation, it was a case of that (get f**ked) in relation to localism.
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You’re right! They did… this is 26-28 September 1982
No ‘Today at Two’ or ‘Teleclub’ then though.
I meant to ask earlier.. was their local news called ‘Today Tonight’ (at 6.30) then? As Brisbane had ‘A State Affair’ at that time.
… there was no local news at that time, “Today Tonight” was the QTQ current affairs show produced by the former ABC mob …
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I did work experience at SEQ in 1984 during High school and stayed back one evening to watch Melissa do the local news. She was amazing.
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This is excellent to know!! I’m glad I’m not going crazy 
The Young Doctors was our favourite show and I remember we weren’t allowed to start making dinner until after it finished. We watched it religiously. We were usually finishing up dinner with Sale Of The Century.
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The Great Affiliation Switch of 1990
Most of you will be aware that, just a few days out from aggregation in regional QLD, TNQ and RTQ/DDQ were involved in a last minute affiliation switch from Nine to Ten.
Below are newspaper articles from each of the three affected markets
Townsville (TNQ) - from the Townsville Bulletin
Rockhampton (RTQ) - From the ‘Rockhampton Morning Bulletin’.
Toowoomba (DDQ) - From the ‘Toowoomba Chronicle’.
I’ll put some TV guides for that era in the ‘Classic TV Guides’ thread shortly - now done as below.
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These articles kinda confused what I thought happened. I didn’t realise WIN already owned RTQ, so wonder how that was going to work - would the WIN owned RTQ “Star Television” operate in half of Queensland, but then the Darling Downs TV DDQ station, also called “Star Television” operate in another part?
Kinda like if how the nominal separation between the parts of Victoria that have ‘BCV’ and those that have ‘GLV’ could have had different owners, was that actually defined in the plans in those cases where there were more than 3 stations creating the aggregated market?
I’d always thought WIN swooped in at the last minute to enter Queensland in the first place.
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I didn’t quite understand how the Star TV arrangement (as a Ten affiliate) was going to work, given that RTQ was owned by WIN and DDQ was owned by Haynes. So the two stations were essentially separate entities, with each having separate playout over their respective sections of the aggregated market. They must have intended to have a very close working relationship if they were to maintain a uniform line-up and brand across the statewide market. But it could have had the potential for the RTQ side of Star TV having some different or split schedules from DDQ, and vice versa?
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we were thinking the same thing at the same time, look at my post above yours 
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The guides I posted for ‘Star Television’ as a 10 affiliate under the original plan in the 'Classic TV guides thread for Rockhampton and Toowoomba show some differences, particularly early morning and early evening… but it would have been interesting to see whose line up the Sunshine Coast/Wide Bay and Mackay areas were supposed to get (something I didn’t get around to looking up - maybe next time I’m up in Brisvegas).
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I think, but can’t be certain to be correct, was that RTQ was to manage Rockhampton and all markets north (Mackay, Townsville, Cairns), and DDQ (with playout from NRN/NRTV in Coffs Harbour) to have Darling Downs/Southern Downs and Sunshine Coast/Wide Bay.
Having potential for split schedules between Star RTQ and Star DDQ might have been a bit of an issue for statewide listings like TV Week. I wonder if they were going to list both Stars separately or try to manage the split schedules under a single Star column.
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Opening of WIN “WIN Television and the Nine Network - Queensland’s great new team”
Using the Nine’s “Still the One in '91” ident
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WIN had owned the RTQ station for a couple of years prior to aggregation at the end of 1990. Interestingly, DDTV had owned nearly one quarter of the RTQ station prior to WIN taking it over. In hindsight, their acceptance of WIN’s offer for RTQ was the end for them. WIN had scale brought from their SNSW operation that DDTV or QTV for that matter could not match.
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… you gotta laugh at Google AI - first “WIN Television purchased RTQ (as part of its acquisition of Star TV) in December 1990, just days before television aggregation took effect in regional Queensland” then, after I queried that “Conflicting acquisition dates for RTQ by WIN stem from primary sources and historical records documenting different phases of a multi-stage corporate takeover between 1988 and 1990. Official corporate paperwork points to an initial ownership stake and license control being established in 1988, while later broadcast restructuring and the final public corporate buyout concluded in 1990. For further historical context, read the discussion at Media Spy” but at least it knows where to find the facts!!!
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So if WIN owned RTQ, Howcome it wasn’t in line for the 9 affiliation from the get go?
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Might have something to do with the part ownership in QTV by the Nine Network. Maybe the assumption was that Nine would align itself.
I wonder at what point did Nine decide otherwise though? Assuming it was Nine that approached WIN and not the other way around.
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Also that the Packers owned Nine then, and I imagine TWT didn’t have any stake in that.
Another possible factor being that Bruce also didn’t own the VIC or TAS stations (not until about 1994) so that didn’t really give him as much leverage in negotiating affiliations.
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WIN would have been planning to take the Nine affiliation by using their coverage credentials as opposed to dealing with single operators in each market. If buying DDQ hadn’t worked on its own, Northern Rivers Television may have also been purchased, hence stories about the bid by WIN television in early 1990s that came to nothing. WINs access via the complete aggregated markets across QLD, NSW and ACT would have been considerably tempting for Nine. Given the stalemate between Nine and QTV, the proposed Northern Rivers Television purchase was not necessary at that point.
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