WOW, I never thought I’d see that old MTN News intro again, thanks @Mechsta! They pretty much kept with that look until a few years after they became WIN.
MTN did have local idents, though they were rather basic - a typical one would start with the Nine ident but before the Nine logo would appear, a local (Griffith/Leeton/possibly Hay) photo with the dotted MTN logo would be zoomed-out to be overlaid over the ident - so it wasn’t a customised version like WIN and NBN received. They kept using this style of ident at least until the supplementary “Prime” channel started in 1996 (I think they gave up once they had two channels to deal with).
But oddly, they didn’t play them at all hours - they’d typically use them in the afternoon and evening, but the rest of the time they idented as “WIN”, as they were essentially running on a dirty feed. All program promos and (most?) PRGs were just the dirty feed’s “WIN” ones too. Advert playout during the day was always local, though.
I’m not sure where the feed for WIN came from - the feed for Prime came via Orange (the old Mid-State TV link) and it’s possible WIN was fed this way too, but that presumes WIN didn’t bother splitting their southern NSW feed, as I always suspected that the WIN feed came from the Wagga station.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they ever got autocue to be honest (memory doesn’t serve me well on that). They never had headlines or over-the-shoulder graphics during this era - besides the constant “MTN/WIN News” one - the only real change besides the change to “WIN” was circa 2004 when they ditched the constant OTS and changed to a lighter background with a big “WIN” logo in the background.
The lack of OTS is almost a backward step from those tapes from 1979 also up on YouTube, where the slide machine would at least change the background from story to storyt…
I do recall seeing a videotape of off air reception of MTN from 1991 that was very snowy (received at West Wyalong) that showed MTN using their own PRG’s during the “Sunday” program. Nine or WIN didn’t use PRG’s for that program from memory.
I did see WIN Griffith in April 2006 on a visit to Leeton and noticed that they were still doing locally based presentation (this was a few months before it was centralised). The timing of ad breaks was incorrect on some occasions. I saw that they missed the “Sunday” opener because of an ad break that ran over time. They were also still using ads with just text on a colour background like they were years before then. Plus all their own presentation was still being done in 4:3 aspect ratio, whereas the WIN network feed was in 14:9. The digital transmissions were transmitted like that, no doubt looking bad on the still new widescreen TVs back then. Very amateur hour TV.
In that era, before MTN had their supplementary channel, did they carry any Seven or Ten programming apart from major sports events such as AFL, Bathurst, Olympic and Commonwealth Games?
When MTN took on the WIN feed from Christmas 1989 onwards, it was solely Nine Network. With of course the exception of Seven and Ten big events like the AFL, Motor sport, Olympics and Melbourne Cup. I think they may have still closed overnight for a few more years whereas the main WIN service was 24 hours.
Were they still independent at that stage? If so, did they do this solely to save money, seeing as they were a solus operator they could’ve continued to offer a mix of programs.
MTN has effectively been a relay station since about 1973 when they started taking the majority of its programming from CBN8/CWN6 but having their own local advertising and local programs. They were under independent ownership until WIN bought them out in 1998. STV8 Mildura and GLV8 Gippsland used to operate in a similar way I do believe with their links with BCV8 but I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong.
In January 1974 GLV10 began relaying their programming from BCV8, identifying as BCV/GLV on air, but with opt-outs for local news, commercials, afternoon women’s programmes, local sports awards nights and childrens’ shows. Both stations relayed their news from GTV9 at that stage although around 1977 that changed to HSV7 in line with all other regional stations in Victoria. I’m not sure if they were co-owned in the beginning, but Southern Cross Broadcasting bought both stations in 1982 hence the change of on-air name to Southern Cross TV8.
STV8 began relaying from BCV8 in mid to late 1975, I remember they identified as BCV/GLV/STV (that would be a mouthful!) at that time again with local opt-outs. They were independently owned throughout this programming arrangement, done obviously to save money after converting to colour transmission.
BCV8 and GLV10 were separate companies at the time of their respective launches. It appears that the 2 stations came under a combined ownership (by the Victorian Broadcasting Network) in the 1974/75 financial year as per this snippet from the Australian Broadcasting Control Board’s annual report for that year:
MTN most certainly closed down and I think they were still doing so as late as about '94 from memory - they used to open without much ceremony at 7am (when the Today show started back then). Don’t think they were closing down by the time they added the supplementary channel though.
For the record, their “testcard” (for opens at least) around that time was just a full-screen photo (can’t remember what of; probably the main street of Griffith) with the MTN logo and digital clock counting up to 7am. No particular “sign-on” sequence to speak of, just ident and straight into Today.
20 years ago today, ABC News Victoria was on location in Albury - Wodonga, from memory they spent the whole week on location around Victoria,. not sure if there was a reason to be out of the studio or they thought they’d take the news to the people. Now flying to Perth is an easier option it seems when the studio is unavailable.
