Same with TV - many regional stations took direct feeds from metro stations in the early 90s - GTS/BKN did it well into the 2000s (took a feed from Seven Adelaide overnight)
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I recall in regional Victoria during the 90s/early 2000s there was full relays (ads, metro IDs, etc) overnight of GTV on VIC TV/WIN and ATV on Southern Cross. Prime Victoria instead did a full relay of Prime Canberra so we got Canberra ads and the NSW/ACT version of the Prime watermark overnight.
Other regional markets may have been similar. I’m fairly sure it was every night after midnight but may have been only weekends.
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I can say that WIN (to this day) is the only regional TV network to still be 100% relaying a metropolitan Nine station into a regional city after midnight.
EXAMPLE: In Wollongong, viewers watching WIN get customised ad breaks featuring metropolitan (product, major retailer) ads mixed in with regional (Illawarra) ads during the day and in primetime and late at night, but then after midnight, the station turns into a repeater of Channel Nine from Sydney, complete with Sydney commercials. The multichannels there also experience the same thing.
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Prime Canberra was generic national content from 12.30am onwards for all Prime markets when Prime Ballarat and Tamworth went home. Canberra ad content was on a separate feed anyway not seen outside of Canberra as the Canberra feed used to breakaway from the main AMC switched feed which was Wollongong until 1995.
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Let’s reminisce, shall we? From 2nd July 2023, when YouTuber VK2KRR west of The Rock Hill in NSW received the 7HD Griffith signal 155km away.
Now a sad sight to see, back then there were regional ads galore, now it’s just a repeater of ATN-7 Sydney, complete with city ads. If you’re going to receive the Griffith signal nowadays, whatever you do, DO NOT TUNE TO SEVEN… and if Seven is already on your TV list in Griffith, delete it off your TV (if supporting local is what you intend to do).
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With all due respect, how does any of this have to do with the potential sale of the Southern Cross Television assets?
May as well lock this thread until something is actually announced.
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Indeed, consider it locked
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Any off-topic discussion and the thread will be shut down again
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Very interesting development, depends on what sort of plans they would have in store but it would be a huge risk.
Could see more benefit of the stations being picked up by the metros, more consistency and somewhat prolongs the inevitable closure of them.
According to AFR the aim for ADH would be to
buy the network, slash content costs and create local news shows.
Short of renegotiating their affiliation deals, I’m intrigued how they might achieve the second item. I think this will just flush out a deal with SCA and the metros - I can’t imagine that $15m would be attractive
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Would be surprised if SCA say yes to such a low bid of $15 million. No doubt well under the asking price sought by SCA.
Even if SCA say yes, this would fall over in the long run. There are no real content costs left to slash. Can’t see 7 or 10 cutting their affiliation fees, why would they?
Best if ACMA abolished all the outdated 1950’s era TV1 licences and instead bring 7.9 and 10 into line with ABC and SBS with national licences.
The days of independent regional operator middle people trying to skim off the back of the metros and their content is well and truly over.
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I’m interested to see if this is an “unsolicited” bid or not (ie - have SCA given ADH any details that would allow them to make an informed bid).
I feel these would be for the 10 affiliate stations in regional QLD, Southern NSW and Victoria only.
I strongly suspect ADH has seen that Sky News Regional has been a ratings multichannel winner (especially in Queensland) and wants a piece of the pie and have their own conservative TV channel.
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Given their previous attitude towards selling their TV assets, I get the vibe that SCA want to get rid of all the stations at the same time for a price in which they think is reasonable.
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Yeah, I can certainly see this as effective to flush out a better bid.
That second point about cutting programming costs alone, unlike previous affiliation battles where it was obvious the regional network has to eventually blink or they can’t fill a schedule - just putting their existing ADH TV service on FTA probably does make that a somewhat viable option, so there’s a lot less chance the metro network can be the one that holds out.
As far as the model goes - they may be looking to the success of Sinclair in the US, using acquiring network affiliates to then skew their local news services towards conservative political views. People had strong trust for those services so they were pretty effective at people not perceiving them as biased in a way that Fox or MSNBC might be viewed.
Even if it didn’t profit directly, the reach into millions of regional homes to bring that kind of politically driven programming may be worth it to the owners.
Ten would obviously be the worst affiliate fit for such a network - given how much the right rail against The Project and the like - perhaps those shows are pre-empted for right skewing current affairs. Similarly if you have a “news update” of right-wing talking points during Masterchef on “Ten”, then the average viewer in regional areas isn’t going to realise they aren’t actually watching Ten.
That kind of risk to the Ten/Seven brand should surely be enough to have them reaching into their pockets a bit.
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Affiliate contracts in Australia are for the full 24/7 metro output, whether the regional opts out or not, they have to pay for programming holus bolus even if they chose not to air chunks of it. That is why most local content got axed when aggregation started.
I would be surprised if this ADH proposition ever gets off the ground.
If it does, it will go broke very quickly.
It might be just cheaper to turn these SCA stations into repeaters of capital city stations at this rate… 
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Interested to see how this pans out. Given that SCA have previously knocked back offers, $15m seems like a small amount for them to suddenly jump at
Wonder what it means for the JVs etc as well
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