WIN Television
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WIN Television or WIN is an Australian regional television network. It broadcasts in Queensland, Southern New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia.
It is owned by WIN Corporation, controlled by the privately held Oberon Broadcasters, owned by Bruce Gordon.
It was previously a Wollongong-only station, before expanding into other states by acquiring other television stations. As a result, WIN TV is the largest regional broadcaster, in terms of both size and audience. The only areas that it doesn't broadcast to are Northern New South Wales, the Northern Territory, Broken Hill and the Spencer Gulf.
They used to widely use a modified version of the Nine Network logo on all its stations, regardless of if they were a sole Nine Network affiliate or not. However, they presently use a logo without the nine balls most of the time.
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WIN Television
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Southern New South Wales
WIN's first station was located in Wollongong. Television Wollongong Transmission Ltd began broadcasting on the 18 March 1962. The station's callsign stands for Wollongong (and the) Illawarra Network or, fitting in with the Australian callsign scheme, Wollongong Illawarra New (South Wales). It was originally owned by Rupert Murdoch, who sold it ten years later to Paramount International Television chief Bruce Gordon. Murdoch did this so he could buy controlling interests in capital city stations TEN-10 Sydney and ATV-0 (now ATV-10) Melbourne.
Coverage expanded a few years later, with WIN-11 Moruya and Batemans Bay, WIN-3 Narooma, WIN-6 Bega and WIN-3 Eden.
With aggregation looming, the long links WIN and the Nine Network had would put them in good stead; they would pick up the Nine Network affiliate for Southern New South Wales. In 1989, WIN expanded into the rest of Southern New South Wales, with new relays WIN-31 Canberra, WIN-39 Orange, WIN-52 Bathurst, WIN-63 Dubbo and WIN-62 Wagga, amongst others, and new facilities in Orange, Wagga and Canberra.
News bulletins are produced from Wollongong and Canberra; the Canberra news bulletin is the top rating commercial bulletin in the ACT.
Griffith
WIN TV expanded further into Griffith, New South Wales, purchasing MTN-9 Griffith and supplementary station AMN-31 Griffith from its local owners in 1998. The station had previously been part of the Prime Television network of stations. The station already had links with WIN, taking its feed from its Wollongong base. For information on MTN pre-1998, please read the Prime Television topic.
Victoria
WIN Television Victoria began as several stations serving the western parts of Victoria. They were:
- GMV-6 Shepparton, beginning on the 23 December 1961
- BTV-6 Ballarat, launching on 27 April 1962, and
- STV-8 Mildura, which started on the 25 November 1965.
In the 1980s, BTV-6 and GMV-6 would become part of Associated Broadcasting Services, who also owned radio station 3MP in Melbourne and a regional radio network including 3UL Warragul (now 3GG), 3YB Warrnambool and 3SR Shepparton.
In the 1990's, ABS would be brought out by ENT Limited, who also owned TVT-6 in Hobart. STV-8 Mildura would also join BTV-6 and GMV-6, having earlier been part of the Southern Cross Network, along with BCV-8 Bendigo and GLV-8 Gippsland. This brought on a name change to Television Victoria, otherwise known as VIC TV.
VIC TV became the affiliate of the Nine Network in 1992, expanding across regional Victoria. BTV and GMV's callsigns were changed to VTV, but STV's was kept intact (Mildura wasn't included in aggregation). In 1994, ENT was brought out by WIN TV, and VIC TV became WIN Television Victoria.
A few years later, Mildura's news bulletin, which was produced at STV in Mildura was moved to Ballarat, and became pre-recorded.
Mildura Digital Television
In 2004, WIN and Prime formed a joint venture company (Mildura Digital Television) to bid for a digital supplementary license being offered for the Mildura/Sunraysia license area. It was successful, and is expected to start broadcasting by November 2005.
Queensland
WIN Television Queensland started out as television stations DDQ-10 Toowoomba (starting 13 July 1962) and RTQ-7 Rockhampton (starting 7 September 1963).
In the 1980's, DDQ-10 was changed to DDQ-0, so that Brisbane's TVQ-0 could be changed to TVQ-10.
In 1988, DDQ and RTQ merged to become Vision Television, later Star Television. Star TV was preparing to become a Network Ten affilate in 1990 when regional Queensland would be aggregated, however, WIN Television purchased the station a few days before aggreation was due to take place. As a result, Star TV was given the Nine affiliation; the Ten affiliation going to former Nine affilate QTV. DDQ became RTQ; Star TV became WIN Television Queensland.
News bulletins come from both studios for the different regions, with weather bulletins from the one studio.
South Australia
WIN Television South Australia was once two separate television stations:
- SES-8 Mt. Gambier, which began on 25 March 1966, and
- RTS-5a Riverland, which started 26 November 1976.
In 1999, both stations were purchased by WIN Television, and they became WIN TV. Until recently news bulletins came from both stations, however, they are now both from the one station in Mount Gambier.
The stations take programs from all three networks, mainly from Nine. They were granted a supplementary license, with that station becoming WIN Ten (using Network Ten identification), taking an feed from Ten Adelaide. Some programs still come the Seven Network, but this rarely happens (the 2004 Athens Olympics being a recent example).
Western Australia
WIN Television was granted a license to operate in regional Western Australia in the late 1990s, and began in March 1999. It is a combination of programs from both the Nine Network and Network Ten, (GWN screens Seven Network programming.)
WIN TV WA is based out of Ten's Perth station, due to constant fighting between WIN and Eva Presser, who co-own nearly all of Sunraysia Television. This company owns and operates Nine Perth. WIN owns 40% of Sunraysia Television, acquired when WIN purchased ENT Limited.
As a result of the fighting, WIN WA broadcasts Ten Perth's 5pm news bulletin, and not Nine's 6pm bulletin. Incidentally, the feed comes from WIN's Wollongong station, which means if something goes wrong there, problems occur in the West. Some of Network Ten's programming they show are the The Simpsons, Neighbours, Law and Order, The Nanny, Seinfeld, Australian Idol and The X Factor.
Its callsign is WOW, which has no official meaning.
Tasmania
WIN Television began as TVT-6 Hobart, which began on the 23 May 1960.
In 1982, ENT Ltd - the owner of TNT-9 Launceston - purchased TVT-6, forming TasTV. TVT-6 became TasTV Southern Tasmania.
In 1989, TNT-9 was sold to Tricom Corporation (now Southern Cross Broadcasting), and split TasTV into two; Southern Cross in the north, TasTV in the south.
On 30 April 1994, the Tasmanian television markets were aggregated, and TVT became an affilate of the Nine Network. In 1994, ENT was purchased by WIN, and TasTV became WIN Television Tasmania.
News bulletins come from Hobart, with a 6pm Tasmanian state bulletin, and a 6.30pm national news bulletin.
As of March 2005 WIN Northern Tasmania (Digital Channel), became the first local commercial station to include Now & Next, and Extended Program information on their digital transmission.
Tasmanian Digital Television
In 2002, WIN and Southern Cross joined forces to create Tasmanian Digital Television (or TDT), which launched in late 2003. TDT broadcasts mainly Network Ten programming. WIN operates the administration and sales side of the company.
News, Programming and Identification
WIN produces local news for most of its license areas, except for Western Australia and some parts of Queensland. These bulletins are aired at 6pm weeknights, and are repeated in place of Nightline most late nights, except during the football season.
WIN also produces some programming that is seen on the Nine Network and on fellow Nine affilate NBN. These include Destinations, a travel program, and Goodsports, a children's program. The latter was first produced by their Tasmanian station.
Finally, WIN has got a terrible track record when it comes to station identification. The network uses watermarks on all programs, and uses special watermarks for news, sports and live programming. They often coverup Nine's own logos during such broadcasts. Their Australian map watermark was once a target of hate mail to the station, but in further use, the watermark has been changed to be more appealing to the viewer. Also, they change the production end boards of the Nine Network to their own.
Ownership in other networks
WIN's owner, Bruce Gordon, recently increased their stake in Network Ten, in what could be viewed as an attempt to become a major media player in Australia once media ownership laws are changed (which is almost guaranteed to happen during the forthcoming term of the Howard government). WIN also holds shares in PBL, and Sunraysia Television.