Lots of hypotheticals going on here. Wait and see what happens. Like I said, consolidating into Hobart could mean a total move similar to 7QLD into a totally new facility and not the existing Hobart facility. With my money being on Hobart which would be years away yet.
Seven sort of had brief control of MVQ and SEQ under the Skase era when Skase owned Seven when the transfer of MVQ and SEQ Ops to Maroochydore occurred. My memory is very hazy now in that regards.
SCA confirmed today discussions are progressing, with confirmation that sale proceeds to be used to reduce company debt.
It will be happening, just a matter of finalising and signing the agreements on both sides.
SCA battling to close TV sale as deadline looms
Southern Cross Austereo’s plan to sell its regional TV stations before the end of the year is looking shaky, as discussions stall with potential buyers including Seven West.
Southern Cross Austereo’s plan to sell its regional TV stations before the end of the year is looking shaky, as discussions stall with potential buyers Seven West Media and Network 10.
SCA chief executive John Kelly announced in August the media company was trying to find a buyer of its regional TV business in “the short-term”, but three months down the track the business appears no closer to a sale.
The struggle to offload the assets was discussed at an unscheduled SCA board meeting last week. In a statement to the ASX last week, SCA said it continued to “actively progress with the sale of its regional television assets”.
I can only guess they are again expecting more than they are actually worth.
You may be right.
If SCA are willing to split up the assets, I’ll gladly offer $2 to take the South Australian station with callsign SGS off their hands. I believe it’s currently the Ten affiliate so surely $2 is more than they expect to make from it this year.
You’re overvaluing the station by $1.99 
“it has been claimed.”
that’s like claiming the sky is blue
Agree, but way too late. Mildura is just the start Senator…
It’s also not true. While it took too long because the ACMA are toothless, Mildura gained a local news service out of the trigger event caused by the Prime takeover.
A Seven takeover of ITQ as part of buying SCA’s Seven affiliates would mandate a local news requirement for Mt Isa that currently doesn’t exist.
The government probably should have tied the PING grants to entering into the ‘trigger event’ content levels, but we have what the legislation requires, and at the very least the trigger events would see a big uptick in the markets required to have local content.
It’s ironically probably one of the things holding up this deal happening - because it’s an increased cost burden over already loss making remote assets.
SCA currently produces news updates for the Seven Central service. I wouldn’t call them “local” as they cover the entirety of the Seven Central footprint and rarely have any content from the towns in the broadcast area, instead mostly being national content and some state content. I give SCA some credit for these because they’re providing something they don’t have to provide, which is more relevant to their viewers than updates from HSV or BTQ which often have a heavy focus on local Melbourne or Brisbane news.
Occasionally there’s some local news from somewhere in the broadcast area. I recall once when SCA NOC was based in Canberra and updates had already moved to Hobart, I became aware of a Telstra mobile outage affecting three or four remote towns as it was affecting our telemetry. I had more information on the outage and expected restoration time than Telstra had released publicly and informed the journalist producing the VAST updates, who was appreciative and seemed very excited to have a local story to follow up. It was nice to see the VAST updates that night provide information about a telecommunications outage which was impacting thousands of viewers with virtually no other local news service.
I’d argue the existing VAST updates are sufficient for most of the broadcast area, but it would be interesting to see how Seven could meet a content quota for a licence area like Mt Isa given it’s fed by VAST North. Having to provide a separate feed just for Mt Isa would never make sense to the accountants and, unlike most other SCA updates where enough local news can be found online for a journalist a million miles away to rewrite, Mt. Isa would almost need a dedicated journalist on the ground to write enough content. Just another unjustifiable expense for the accountants.
If Seven does buy the affiliate stations from the hands of SCA, then some new regional feeds might indeed launch on 7plus soon
From 4th July 2024. I think MediaSpy missed this one… (please correct me if I’m wrong)
In the Griffith region, the WIN Network has also decided not to renew an agreement it had with the Seven Network regarding advertising, which means local businesses can no longer book advertising on Channel Seven through WIN.
“We’ve had a long relationship with the local WIN TV team and we’re just as disappointed as they are, regarding the decision to end Channel 7’s local broadcast and to lose Sky News altogether. I am concerned about other networks doing the same in the future and our local identity on TV will be gone forever,” Dean Owen of Owen Toyota said.
“With the recent changes to broadcast arrangements in Griffith, WIN is still the point of contact for advertisers to book Nine and Ten. Seven is providing a separate feed into Griffith,” the spokesperson said.
Does this mean that Seven is just relaying the Wagga Wagga transmissions into Griffith now? If so, that means Griffith will have these options:
Can anyone in Griffith confirm if this is the case? Thanks.
Covered in the WIN Corporation thread
In short, WIN7 Griffith is taking Seven Sydney as a dirty feed complete with Sydney commercials. They did take the Wagga Wagga feed for about half a week at Seven’s request but then it changed to Sydney. There was some backlash from local advertisers about advertising from similar businesses in not-too-far-away locations suddenly getting a monopoly on airtime in Griffith but it wasn’t really clear who chose to switch back to Sydney feed, WIN or Seven.
The WIN7 stations in South Australia are taking Adelaide feeds.
Per the table on the ACMA’s site, while Mt Isa TV1 is included, the Remote Central/Eastern market is excluded from the rule.
So you could just continue to use the same feed, but include more Mt Isa specific content in the local updates, as they wouldn’t need to also give any “local” content to the remote market.
Thanks.
It’s clear that we’re starting to see a future where city broadcasts with city advertising is the future of regional TV. Seven Sydney being fed into Griffith and Seven Adelaide into Mount Gambier and surrounds is just the start. It’s a real shame.
I already raised this issue back in August when I first joined MS.
local transmitters for the local regional channels would be turned into sole repeaters of the respective capital city channels. No more local advertising, no more local news, just everything capital cities
Call it nonsensical, but what we’ve just seen happen in Griffith and Mount Gambier (on Seven) is what could possibly happen in the future if these networks continue to axe jobs and reduce local presences. Doing all of that until we’re left with just repeaters (relays) of the metro channels. So sad.
I’m not saying that I support this sort of thing, but something like that has happened in the past for radio.
In the early 80’s, several commercial radio stations in regional south Australia including 5SE Mt. Gambier used to relay 5AD after hours and overnight. This was a complete relay, including Adelaide advertising, mentions of 5AD, and everything. But it was only after hours, e.g. from some time in the evening on weeknights and possibly earlier on weekends.
That’s some interesting history there, thanks for that information.
Yeah I don’t support regional stations being turned into capital city station relays, but I knew that this was just going to be the start of a sad and slow decline of regional TV news, advertising and more.
Regional TV has already lost its identity in terms of station IDs, with regional names replaced by that of the generic metropolitan ones overtime as the years went on. There’s still local (regional) news, but how long until they face the chop? Then there’s advertising, and with Griffith and Mount Gambier/Riverland/Loxton’s Seven Network stations being replaced with the metropolitan stations directly from the cities and with city advertising now taking the helm of ad breaks there, how can local businesses reach out to their audiences?
I hope Nine and Ten stick around in the form of being able to book advertising through WIN on those networks, but I reckon with what we’ve seen recently it probably won’t be too long until Griffith becomes part of the Sydney TV license area. That might seem nonsensical to some MediaSpy readers and members, but before you go and leave that as a reply, just realise that this is a sad reality we’re in, regional TV services disappearing and being swallowed by the city stations. Long live Regional TV.
