Agree. They take possession on May 31, with the Ten branding likely to change to WIN immediately. Channel shuffles and other significant changes would likely occur at midnight, like the affiliation swap, to reduce the impact on viewers.
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A few issues spring to mind
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Whether MediaHub will be ready to take a full suite of NNSW channels including HD from 31st May or not. Or if SCA will provide playout using the existing TEN branding until that is ready.
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If WIN will look to build towards a relaunch of TEN as WIN eg. if some “a new era in regional television is coming” type promos will run for a few weeks ahead of say a 1st July relaunch, even if that is a Saturday.
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I would expect the changes to happen whenever playout moves to MediaHub. It would be more work for WIN to keep the Ten branding rather than just copy everything through all channels.
It’s just a matter of when this will happen. It’s a very real possibility that SCA could provide playout for a limited time while Media Hub increase capacity and sources for transmitters are updated. Though given the length of time since the sale started there’s possibly been enough time for all of this to have already been sorted to go live on on May 31st. The sale agreement could even mean that SCA will run ads advising of the change in the lead up.
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I agree. They’re probably already running the channels in a sort of test mode, if past channel launches are anything to go by.
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Regardless of whether the On-Air changes happen on May 31 or the end of the financial year, surely there’ll have to be some type of “Ten is becoming WIN” and/or “Ten is now WIN” promotional campaign for the benefit of Northern NSW viewers? Otherwise I can see the change being very confusing for people up there.
Another thing to keep in mind: Production for the mandated Local News Updates. I know that SCA did branding changes for those across the board on July 1 last year when the affiliation reshuffle happened, but would the switch from SCA to WIN for the production of Northern NSW News Updates really happen mid-week?
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Also, what will be the new channel assignments: they’ll keep the Channel 5 multiplex or swap with 9NBN for the Channel 8 multiplex that WIN has across regional Australia?
Not a hope in hell that NBN will change, so they’ll have to keep using 5x
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Thinking about it, WIN could just repurpose the material they used for the affiliation swap. Its pretty much all ready to go, bar some minor updates
(I believe these are all capped by @Abesty, correct me if I’m wrong)
Example 1:
They would literally just need to change the channel numbers at the end
Example 2:
Change channel numbers and put in a comment pointing out that Ten programming is now on WIN
Other examples are running the “TEN Eyewitness News, Now on WIN” promo and the Evening News Lineup promo, featuring WIN News or not, depending on what they do in that department
Again, no way Nine will swap their channels out for WIN’s benefit. This is why they will need to run a seperate set of promos etc stating WIN is on 5, 50, 51, 52, 54 blah blah blah. At least the channels will now be in some sort of order, unlike what SCA has at the moment
Oh and for what its worth the SCTen website has been taken offline in anticipation; the domain now points to SCA’s general website
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While I can see a reshuffle of the LCNs happening, I can’t see Nine/NBN wanting to hand over it’s use of the 8x range of LCNs to WIN. If anything, the 5x range of LCNs should be used by WIN in all markets.
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SCA approached WIN about swapping LCNs before the affiliation swap to keep Nine on 8 and Ten on 5, but WIN refused. It will never change back now that people are accustomed to Nine on 5 and Ten/WIN on 8.
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Besides, NBN are using the ‘correct’ LCN anyway
They won’t give it up for WIN, and its not Nine’s problem that WIN and SCA never swapped LCNs.
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While most of the changes shouldn’t be too noticeable for Northern NSW viewers (apart from the large logos), there are some massive changes to the LCNs coming.
Assuming WIN use the same LCN structure in the 5’s, as in the 8’s, viewers will find every single programme in a different LCN location after the change except for the primary channel.
| LCN | SCA | WIN |
| 05 | Ten | WIN |
| 50 | One | WIN HD |
| 51 | Ten | One |
| 52 | Ten HD | Eleven |
| 53 | - | WIN Network |
| 54 | - | TVSN |
| 55 | Eleven | GOLD |
| 56 | Aspire TV | One |
| 57 | TVSN | - |
| 58 | - | WIN |
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I doubt WIN will change the LCN structure much; apart from some minor tweeking like GOLD instead of Aspire. That way there will be no need to retune. Re-assigning 50, 51 and 52 might make sense as well.
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I would expect that the LCNs will stay reasonably unchanged to prevent viewers needing to retune. Even WIN 8x LCN structure is largely due to the previous LCNs under Nine affiliation.
Given the first number will always be different in NNSW, there’s no problem with the second number also being different.
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Telling viewers not the retune would be irresponsible. The affiliation swap is a great example: both SCA and WIN told viewers not to bother retuning, and as a result, there are likely still some viewers (mostly seniors) out there missing 9Gem and 9Go! via SCA, not to mention channels that viewers to receive having the wrong DVB name. I remember that this was brought up a few months ago IIRC.
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Do you really think they are going to run that blank channel in a new market?
I know it uses next to no resources but it seems like a waste of time bothering to run it in a new market[quote=“Nick, post:3588, topic:55”]
. I remember that this was brought up a few months ago IIRC.
[/quote]
yes this is the case, I had equipment that still had LIFE on 84 even though its now TVSN
in WIN SA territory it wasn’t so much an issue since the channels that WIN TEN were previously on (WIN TEN 5, ONE 50, ELEVEN 55) are now occupied by the NINE channels (NINE 5, GEM 50, GO! 55, 9LIFE no longer airs 
) and channel 83 (formerly GO!) will just show No Signal, so besides channel names… it didn’t need a retune
in your combined SCA/WIN markets is where these problems arise, but for example you will have people without MPEG4 equipment who could never see what was on 84 (LIFE), can’t see whats on there now (TVSN), and as such isn’t as likely to be hunting down LIFE on 54
I personally still believe WIN will at least reshuffle the channels to mirror their channel numbers elsewhere except the fact they will be in the 5x range
I guess the hard hitting question is… how will the PQ be once NNSW cuts over to WIN and Media Hub?
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[quote=“xyz223, post:3589, topic:55, full:true”]
Do you really think they are going to run that blank channel in a new market?
I know it uses next to no resources but it seems like a waste of time bothering to run it in a new market[/quote]
WIN’s placeholder channel is the second worst (SCA’s “TBA” channel with the black screen is at #1) waste of a bandwidth of any “service” on Australian TV!
I’m expecting this to be the case as well, but I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.
Probably the same as it is through WIN in other markets.
Another minor positive (if you can call it that) to come out of the switch is the introduction of local advertising and On-Air Presentation in native HD, something you don’t get from SCA currently.
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I think there is a chance WIN could “buy” the 8x LCN range from NBN.
It would be of benefit to both to be using the same LCN range across the country, a “Nine on 5” campaign might work in the long run for NBN as well given the NBN brand is being phased out anyway (9 on 5 in all regionals regardless of whether its run by SCA or Nine).
Who knows, NBN might do a 7QLD at some point and swap their LCNs to the 9x range when the NBN brand is fully phased out (except in overlap areas) and WIN may take the 8x range then.
That is literally the stupidest thing I’ve heard all day. Most people wouldn’t know what numbers are used in other areas so changing LCNs will just confuse viewers about where to find their shows. The switch was less than ideal last year and it took a lot of effort and time for people to work out what the switch meant and to find their shows again - ratings actually indicate that not all viewers found their shows again and the switch in LCN changed viewing habits.
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WIN Ratings Update for the week of 7-13 May:
WIN lifted its ratings share (both main & network) from the previous week in all markets, including the soon-to-be-acquired Northern NSW market. It is 3rd in Regional QLD, Regional VIC & Tasmania, and is 4th in Southern NSW/ACT & Regional WA, with the main channel at 5th behind 7mate in the latter.
WIN’s ratings lift is mainly thanks to Masterchef & HYBPA, as well as Nine’s rather average performance due to The Last Resort flopping.
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