Prime Television
|
|
Prime Television is an Australian television network affiliated to the Seven Network in regional New South Wales, the ACT, and Victoria and in Western Australia as Golden West Network. It also broadcasts to Griffith under license through WIN Television.
The stations that combined to form Prime Television were:
- AMV-4 Albury/Wodonga
- RVN-2 Wagga Wagga
- CBN-8 Orange/Central Tablelands
- CWN-6 Dubbo/Central Western Slopes
- MTN-9 Griffith (now part of WIN Television)
- NEN-9 Tamworth
- ECN-8 Taree
| Contents |
Northern New South Wales
NEN Channel 9 Upper Namoi (Tamworth) began on 27 September 1965, with a relay in Armidale (NEN-1, later NEN-10) on 15 July 1966. ECN Channel 8 Taree began on 27 May 1966.
At one stage, ECN-8 was merged with NRN Channel 11 Coffs Harbour (now Southern Cross Ten NNSW), but they broke away, later merging with NEN9, forming NEN-9-ECN-8. Before 1991, their logo was a silhouette of an Aboriginal standing one-legged leaning on spears.
Prime Television purchased the station, aligning it with the Seven Network (like its Southern NSW counterparts) and changing ECN's call sign to NEN-8. On 31 December 1991, Prime TV became the Northern NSW affiliate of Channel 7 in Northern NSW, in competition with NRTV (now Southern Cross Ten) and NBN.
In 2005, the station celebrates its 40th birthday.
Southern New South Wales
CBN Channel 8 Orange began on 17 March 1962, and CWN Channel 6 Dubbo began on 1 December 1965, becoming the first station to relay another station's programming completely, and the first regional television network. MTN Channel 9 Griffith began on 15 December, also in 1965.
In the early 1970s, due to the financial difficulties many single-stations faced, MTN-9 joined CWN-6 and CBN-8, forming "Television 6, 8, 9". Later on, they became "Midstate 6, 8, 9". Relays were launched in Portland (4), Lithgow (6), Mudgee (9), Cobar, Kandos and Rylstone (10) and Bathurst (11).
In 1986, RVN-AMV and Midstate 6, 8, 9 merged to become The Prime Network, later to become Prime Television, in readiness for aggregation, and began an affiliation with the Seven Network.
There were problems with aggregation, with transmission problems in the old Orange/Dubbo and Wagga areas. This caused the aggregation to be handled in two stages, the ACT and the South Coast on March 31 1989, and in the Orange/Dubbo and Wagga on December 31 1989. It forced the de-merger of RVN-AMV, and RVN-2 became CBN-2.
Griffith wasn't included in aggregation, and as a result, MTN-9 became an affiliate of the Nine Network (the old MTN/WIN Griffith website mentioned that whenever CBN/CWN showed a midday movie, MTN aired soapies over the top, maybe that was why MTN took the Nine Network full time). The feed came from WIN TV. In 1996, MTN-9 successfully bid for a supplementary license, AMN-31, which is a feed from Prime TV Canberra. In 1996, WIN TV brought MTN/AMN, MTN becoming WIN TV Griffith. AMN is still a feed from Prime TV Canberra.
Victoria
RVN-2 Wagga began on 19 June 1964, and AMV-4 Albury began on 7 September later that year.
The same problems facing MTN-9 Griffith also faced RVN and AMV. In 1971, RVN and AMV merged to become the Riverina and North East Victoria Television Service Pty Ltd, known on air as RVN-AMV. 5 years later, RVN took over transmission of AMV from its Wagga studios. Relays in Young (6) and a second Wagga channel (11) were started in this time.
In 1983, daylight saving caused problems for RVN/AMV, since NSW and Victoria ended their daylight saving periods at different times. To combat this, RVN's output was recorded, and shown an hour later on AMV for three weeks. Until aggregation, the station was in the unique situation of showing different programs in Wagga and in Albury, on what was effectively the one station. Wagga took news and sport (namely Rugby League) from Sydney, and Albury got programs from Melbourne.
In 1986, RVN-AMV and Midstate 6, 8, 9 merged to become The Prime Network, later to become Prime Television, in readiness for aggregation, and began an affiliation with the Seven Network. In December 1989, RVN/AMV de-merged, and AMV became Prime TV Victoria.
In 1992, Prime became the Seven Network affiliate in Victoria, competing with Southern Cross Network (later SCN, Ten Victoria, and now Southern Cross Ten Victoria) and Television Victoria (otherwise known as VIC TV, later WIN TV).
In 1997, Prime won the second license for Mildura, which hadn't been aggregated, in competition with WIN TV. Its callsign is PTV, broadcasting on channel 31.
Post-aggregation
From 1991 to 1995, Prime used local versions of Seven's IDs, and the "Your Local Station". From 1995 to 2001, Prime used IDs featuring local people and locations, and the slogan "This is Where We Live".
During this time, Prime stopped local news in Victoria, except in Albury, where they still get Prime News at 5.30pm, the only Prime station to still get local news at 5.30 after a failed attempt in that period.
Also during this period, Prime expanded into Western Australia, Argentina and New Zealand, with the purchase of Golden West Network (GWN), Azul Television, and the launch of Prime Television New Zealand. Success varied.
While GWN continued to do well, its expansion into Argentina failed badly. The collapse of the Argentina economy caused problems for foreign companies in the country; Prime being no exception. It was sold sometime in 2001-2002.
Prime TV NZ was also in the same boat, but Prime struck a deal with PBL to purchase 50% of the company, and Prime TV took on a Channel 9 look and feel, along with some Nine Network programs, and later on, a feed of Fox News, and popular BBC soap, EastEnders. It is now doing better than any other time in its short history.
In 2001, Prime began using "7 on Prime" branded IDs, later dropped, and a new logo. Also at around the same time, Prime stopped news services in Newcastle, Wollongong and Canberra, citing poor ratings, and replaced it with Seven News and Today Tonight. All other services were maintained.
However by late 2001 the Australian Broadcastion Authority (ABA) launched an investigation into the axing of local news programs by Prime and rival Southern Cross Ten. The investigation found that not enough "local" produced programs and so the ABA set out new rules forcing all Eastern state TV Stations including Prime and SC TEN to produce 30 minutes of local programming from Monday to Friday. In early 2004, Prime recommenced local news in Newcastle, Wollongong and Canberra, albeit in 2 minute bursts, but more often than Southern Cross Ten, who only do it every couple of hours. Also in 2004, Prime finally began using new IDs and a new slogan "Bringing It Home to Me".
In terms of local programming, Prime has produced the odd local program, including coverage of the Country Music Festival in Tamworth, and other events. Prime also produces "The Saturday Club", a kids program shown on Saturday mornings at 10.30am, featuring station mascot Prime Possum.
It should be noted that most Prime TV viewers in the regional centres (especially Canberra) make little distinction between Prime TV and its parent, and usually refer to Prime as "Channel Seven"
New Zealand
Prime Television in New Zealand began broadcasting on 30 August 1998. In 2002, it went into a joint venture with the Nine Network of Australia. This greatly expanded the resources available to it, and it's been much more successful ever since. On November 2, 2004, Paul Holmes announced that he was resigning from TVNZ and moving to Prime in 2005.
For more information on the station, please visit the Prime Television New Zealand article.
External links
- Prime Television (http://www.primetv.com.au)