I still think even if it was decided that aggregation would initially only result in one extra commercial channel, all the major regional markets probably would’ve eventually gotten all three networks - perhaps as a joint venture/secondary service (similar to Tasmania, Mildura, Darwin, Regional/Remote WA & Remote Central/Eastern Australia).
Haven’t there been major changes to the media laws just in the last 18 months to 2 years which have resulted in things like the Nine/Fairfax merger and to some extent, CBS buying Network Ten?
Anyway, I think there’s only one of two ways we’ll see the regional networks survive: They either get brought out by the metros or start to become larger content producers in their own right.
Make no mistake, while there’s quite understandably a lot of sympathy out there for people who lose their jobs because of regional TV cutbacks, Media Spy is highly unlikely to be sympathetic to those media organisations like WIN who could eventually die out because of a failure to evolve their product for the digital age. For all the criticisms - many quite deserving - we may give the major metropolitan networks, at least they’re trying (albeit, with Ten entering the game a bit later than the other two) to modernise their organisations! Same deal with the ABC & SBS, who both seem to have a fairly good presence in the online/digital space.