General TV History

And now he’s number four :wink:

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Can’t believe I didn’t mention this earlier, but it looks like there may have been two versions of Capital Television’s Ident for the 1st half of 1989.

Check out 16:39-42 of the upload above and compare it to the logo animation in this clip:

does that mean the had 3 different network indents in 1989 re the 10 TV Australia indent?

They must have just done a tweak to fix the logo animation.

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It took nearly 30 years but karma came and bit Bruce in the butt for shafting QTV out of the Nine affiliation.

I don’t view aggregation as a great success. Whoever got stuck with the Ten affiliation was doomed from the get go, particularly in those markets where the population couldn’t support three competing services.

I would’ve preferred the “multichannel service proposal” put forward by the National party and some station owners whereby supplementary licences would’ve been granted to existing services with competition phased in over time. I like the idea that the supplementary channels could’ve provided complimentary programming, in the way multichannel do now, while maintaining a local identity and local programming instead of becoming a relay station for the metro channels. I look at the old clips from pre aggregation days and it saddens me that so much localism and heritage was lost.

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It would have been preferable I think, but could they have ended up like regional South Australia and Griffith where over time the supplementary licences have become near full-time relays of the metro stations?

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Even if the decision was made to implement the “multichannel” proposal for the major regional markets over aggregation, I still think we would’ve eventually seen consolidation in regional TV ownership and the decline of local programing.

It’s not as if WIN Griffith/Regional SA or Southern Cross in the GTS/BKN viewing area is currently that much more local than the other regional TV stations those companies own.

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I think aggregation/multichanneling would have occurred one way or another depending on who was in power. For the Liberals, allowing competition is a core part of their beliefs, even if it meant pissing off their Coalition partners. Labor found it as a way of gaining brownie points with regional votes AND sticking it to the Country/National party - regional TV was seen as a major supporter of that party.

The major issue is that neither side implemented protections for local content until it was way too late. We have the network system we have as a result.

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Perhaps the solution would have been having two channel aggregation with about double the markets - you would have had two stronger channels that would have been more likely to sustain local content, and not having a 1:1 ratio would have meant you wouldn’t have had mirrors of the city networks, but the extra channel would have resulted in not as much programming being missed out on.

The Tasmanian stations certainly seem like they were stronger than many of the ones on the mainland in three channel markets - including WIN making programming for the network down there, and both providing comprehensive news services.

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So what would the markets have been? I’d reckon these would be the most logical, including the need for selling off commonly owned stations and breaking off network arrangements.

North and North Central Queensland (Cairns/Townsville and Mackay)
South Central Queensland and Sunshine Coast (Rockhampton and Sunshine Coast)
Southern Queensland and North Coast NSW (Toowoomba and Coffs Harbour/Lismore)
North Central NSW (Tamworth/Taree and Newcastle)
South Central NSW (Orange/Dubbo and Canberra)
Southern NSW and Far North-Eastern Victoria (Wagga Wagga/Albury and Griffith)
Central Victoria (Bendigo/Gippsland and Shepparton)
Western Victoria (Mildura and Ballarat)
Eastern SA (Riverland and Mt Gambier)
Tasmania (Launceston and Hobart)

Mt Isa, Spencer Gulf/Broken Hill and Regional WA would have to be left out due to no easily found combo. Unless Mt Isa is combined with one of the more northerly Queensland areas, and SES/RTS merged earlier, allowing for a Regional SA license. WA would have to have a new license granted to it.

What would of happened with Wollongong/South Coast?

My format would be similar I admit

North and North Central Queensland (Cairns/Townsville and Mt Isa)
South Central Queensland and Sunshine Coast (Rockhampton and Mackay)
Southern Queensland and North Coast QLD (Toowoomba and Sunshine Coast)
North West and North Coast NSW (Coffs Harbour/Lismore, Taree and Tamworth)
Western and Central NSW ( Orange/Dubbo and Broken Hill)
South East NSW (Wollongong, South Coast and Newcastle)
Southern NSW and Far North-Eastern Victoria (Wagga Wagga/Albury and Canberra)
Central Victoria (Bendigo/Gippsland and Shepparton)
Western Victoria (Mildura and Ballarat)
Eastern SA (Riverland and Mt Gambier)
Tasmania (Launceston and Hobart)

Areas not specified would be classed as outback Television Licence holder GWN and Imparja would provide primary services to regional WA. NT, and SA where other services not available

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One thing of course is that the markets we think of now are largely combinations of stations that would have had no reason to ‘merge’ without aggregation. So trying to untangle that would be interesting - do you treat stations like CBN/CWN that are networked already as one station, or if it’s two licenses do you treat it as two stations and ‘aggregate’ them together, forcing the sale of the other.

Going through it from that perspective had me inclined to think this would make sense if there were price-based allocations of secondary stations in larger regional markets, and ‘aggregation’ only for smaller ones.

Brett McLeod is presenting Nine News Melbourne on Easter Sunday tonight, just like he did 13 years ago.

30%5D

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A few short clips from the 30th Logie Awards in March 1988.

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Latest VHS uploads.




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I love the dodgy editing on the WIN promos to cover up the voiceover saying “…on Channel Nine” at the end of the promos.

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With “Thursday night on Channel Nine” at the start of the Cheers promo being left unedited!

Ahh, the days before non-linear digital systems could allow you to do seamless (or close to it) edits…

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CONTENT WARNING!

The following cap may bring up repressed memories.

You were warned!!!!

Normal service will resume in a moment.

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That’s a rather sensible outfit by Ms Chin. Very understated :open_mouth:

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Oof, I don’t miss that look at all.