It’s unlikely that Mildura Digital Television will be revived anytime soon
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Yes, and with the history of 10 and NewsCorp in Australia, I suspect 10 would rather do anything other than provide Sky News a platform, even if Sky does theoretically generate revenue.
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Mildura can simply not support 3 commercial TV services If a joint venture didn’t make a profit In the 18 years It was broadcasting In Mildura, then how can a third commercial TV operator make such a profit.
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And even if Channel 10 did come back to Mildura in FTA form, it would be a 100% repeater of ATV-10 Melbourne, just like how MTN-9 Griffith and SES-8 Mount Gambier (Seven affiliates) are now 100% repeaters of both ATN-7 Sydney and SAS-7 Adelaide respectively.
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Side question. After the last census, ACMA reported similar populations living in the Griffith-MIA (66k) and Mildura-Sunraysia (68k) TV licence areas.
Outside of a complete reworking of the TV map, could converting Mildura-Sunraysia into a monopoly market like Griffith and the larger population SA markets (Spencer Gulf 116k, Mount Gambier-South East 72k) make an impact?
The population figures if anybody is interested: https://www.acma.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-08/Section%2030%20Instrument%20and%20Schedule.pdf
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While there is definitely some question around whether Mildura (or possibly other markets) can sustain 3 commerical operators, these joint venture stations aren’t exactly setup for success.
At some point the government will need to relax the rules and allow a dirty metro feed or switch to Metro and Regional state based feeds. One each for each network.
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Will very much become 100% sole repeaters of the capital city Network 10 stations.
What we can actually expect @Bas_Tech is the introduction of repeaters for the capital city Network 10 stations to the ACT and Regional NSW/VIC/QLD for the very first time. But that’ll happen in the not-too-distant future…
They might, but they will very well just be 100% dirty feeds (sole repeaters) of, let’s say, ATV-10 Melbourne on 10 HD Shepparton with no more local advertising. If regional advertisers wish to advertise on TV, they’ve got the already existing O&O Seven Network to take care of that, as they (thankfully) still carry local feeds 24/7, despite the programming being mostly identical to that of the capital cities.
Correct. Coming soon, Network 10 will rid all local feeds of the regional stations currently owned by SCA and then turn them into sole repeaters of the capital city stations, going the way of MTN-9 Griffith and SES-8 Mount Gambier.
Ten don’t give a crap about local news in the bush, so whilst SCA still carry the 10 channels, local advertising and news updates will continue. But then once SCA does sell their regional affiliates over to Ten in the 3-Agg markets, that’s when the local advertising agreements will come to an end, and all news updates for the local areas will also end too.
So enjoy regional advertising and local news updates on SCA-10 in the bush while they last, because once those local feeds are converted into repeaters of the capital city stations, all that localism will be gone. Gone will be advertising opportunities (and local noodle updates) on Channel 5 in towns like Ballarat, Bendigo, Shepparton and Traralgon in VIC, and Wollongong, Orange and Wagga Wagga in NSW, as well as Albury-Wodonga on the NSW/VIC border, Canberra in the ACT, and the Sunshine Coast, Townsville, Cairns, Rockhampton, Mackay, Toowoomba and Wide Bay in QLD, and hello to news updates from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
Reaching out to @RedDragon about this, just wanting to remind you that 10 Wollongong (the mux that you’re using to record noodle updates from SCA-10) may very well be turned into a repeater (dirty feed) of TEN-10 Sydney in the not-too-distant future now that the sale of the SCA-10 affiliates over to Network 10 is official. So if you wish to aim for noodle updates from Wollongong to upload onto your YouTube channel in the future, your long-term option (and best bet) is the 7HD Wollongong mux.
I believe Channel 10 will return to Mildura in FTA form, but as a 100% plain dirty feed (sole repeater) of ATV-10 direct from Melbourne, complete with city advertising.
Will be interesting to see what happens come February 2025. And I certainly hope (in the name of MediaSpy) that the folks at SCA and Network 10 are having a good hard read at this message (and this thread in general)…
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Huh?
Most of the above doesn’t make a whole lot of sense and reads like opinion presented as facts, but 10 will have (increased) local content obligations once they take over the regional stations and that is not likely to change anytime soon.
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Won’t happen. SCA, and soon 10, have a legal obligation to provide local news.
Unless 10 decide on a different way to deliver local news, the noodle updates are here to stay.
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30 years ago yeah, but it’s 2025 in a few days.
far out it is so piss poor that this is all they are expected to do. Governments of both colours have really let down regional communities over the last 40 years.
I don’t think they’ll be aligned with the metro stations, just like what Seven did a while ago.
How do you know any of this? You’re making a lot of assumptions. The actual sale is still months away and a lot of logistics is probably going to take much longer to sort out.
Local advertising is still revenue at a time when they will need every cent they can get. How do you know they’re going to chop that revenue stream off?
Local news is still a licence obligation for regional outlets. How do you know what they are going to do with local news?
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I think we can all read the tea leaves that eventually they’ll be repeaters and then switched off at some point.
Local radio is where the government should focus their energy on regulations for locality.
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eventually, i think they might, but that could still be many years down the track. This isn’t necessarily like Mildura which has a small population, the footprint of stations still cover millions of people and some significant regional centres including Canberra, so Ten must still see some value if it can justify spending millions of dollars to buy out these assets. It’s a lot of money to spend just to shut down.
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I don’t think Sky News is pulling any meaningful amount of viewers away from 10 News
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Has either company actually named a price? Could be a peppercorn just to take it off SCA’s hands and save it some running costs, particularly as there seems to be a profit sharing agreement for five years.
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Melbourne advertising In Mildura I don’t think many viewers would find that appealing Mildura was left out of aggregation due to its small market size, for it to be included there would need to be a change In government legislation, Instead of trying to read the tea leaves all we can do is watch this space however It would be interesting to know how many viewers In Mildura Invested In VAST.
Good point they are nothing more than dirty feeds.
For a Mildura to become a soles market, either 7 or WIN would have to be willing to sell their licence & I can’t see that happening anytime soon.
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