GMV-6
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GMV-6, one of the first regional television stations in Australia, began transmission from Shepparton in 1961, broadcasting from a transmitter at Mt Major.
The station was officially opened on 23 December 1961, co-incidentally the same day as television station BCV-8 in nearby Bendigo. GMV was owned in conjunction with local radio station 3SR.
The callsign GMV refers to the region in which it covers, which includes the catchment areas of the Goulburn River and Murray River. The 'V' refers to Victoria as is the normal protocol for commercial TV station callsigns, where the third letter indicates the state in which the service is licensed.
Early GMV-6 personalities included David Brice and Nancy Cato.
By the late 1960s GMV-6 began operating low powered relay transmitters in the fringes of its coverage area. These included GMV-3 Eildon, GMV-8 Jerilderie NSW, GMV-10 Deniliquin NSW, GMV-10 Alexandra (later changed to GMV-11).
GMV-6 converted to full scale colour TV transmission on 1 March 1975.
By the mid-1980s, transmission hours had extended to commence at 7.00am weekdays, broadcasting until after midnight. Programming included local news and children's programmes, mixed with programs selected from the three capital city commercial networks – the Seven Network, the Nine Network and Network Ten. The evening local news bulletin was supplemented by a relay of the Seven Network news bulletin from HSV-7.
During the 1980s GMV-6 and Ballarat television station BTV-6 had become part of Associated Broadcasting Services which also owned radio station 3MP in Melbourne and a regional radio network including 3UL Warragul (now 3GG), 3YB Warrnambool and 3SR Shepparton.
By 1990, GMV-6 and BTV-6 had been bought by media operator ENT Limited which also operated TVT-6 (TAS TV) in Tasmania. ENT had also purchased STV-8 in Mildura which had previously been affiliated with BCV-8 Bendigo and GLV-8 Gippsland.
GMV-6, BTV-6 and STV-8 therefore took on the identity VIC TV, providing a single program schedule across all 3 stations.
On 1 January 1992, aggregation of regional television took place in Victoria. VIC TV extended transmission to include the areas of Bendigo, Albury and Gippsland. VIC TV had entered into a program supply agreement with the Nine Network but maintained localised news services in each of the six regional markets in which it now operated. The official callsigns GMV and BTV were consolidated into a single callsign, VTV (STV-8 being excluded from the area affected by aggregation, kept its own callsign).
In October 1994, ENT Limited sold VIC TV and TAS TV television networks to regional network WIN Television which already operated Nine Network affiliate stations in New South Wales, Canberra and Queensland. VIC TV and TAS TV both adopted the branding WIN Television.