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ABC & WIN combine for giant playout centre

Unions fear up to 110 job losses following news of a giant combined playout centre between ABC and WIN Television.

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ultimo_abcA curious corporate relationship has formed between the ABC and WIN Television with news today that both organisations will create provide a monster digital TV playout centre at Campbelltown, NSW, to playout all ABC TV and WIN channels.

The new facility to be built will take over the role of services currently run by the ABC’s master control at Ultimo and at WINTV MCR in Wollongong.

It will manage separate play out feeds starting early in 2010.

But unions says about 60 jobs are likely to be cut at WIN in Wollongong, and up to 50 at the ABC.

Source: ABC

21 Responses

  1. Re: The going ons of the WIN and ABC or Nork or TEN…
    Who cares at this stage…. The boys and gals in the suits are telling the boards of directors what is the more viable way forward. Will it work or not, again who cares… In televison land the show always goes on regardless of how it gets to air and that is the way it has always been. State of the Art playout centres a la BBC in London.. yeah bring it on plenty of capable people out there looking forward to these sort of gigs. If it doesn’t work; again… plenty of capable people out there will get the big bucks to decommision and set up again where it all came from.

    Capable person….

  2. Why Seven?

    They have a you beaut facility at Docklands & Ten have a state of the art facility at Pyrmont.

    Meanwhile Nine’s Sydney on-air facility is old & needs rejuvenation or replacement. My money will stay on them for the time being.

  4. The new WIN/ABC combined playout centre would have to courting Nine to join up with them, especially considering Nine almost signed up with Red Bee to out-source their operations a few months ago. They’re obviously interested in this direction.

    And yes “a person”, Foxtel would be interested to have a back-up facility. They presently have no disaster recovery for their current centre.

    Yes, perhaps on the outset a strange combination of companies, but given they both have national coverage, they’re actually probably a better fit then say ABC & Nine for instance.

  6. @ hawker
    your statement is wrong!
    u have no idea!! they were told what was going and what was told what will happen to their jobs. no one was sacked. but they were all very disappointed.
    and there is a rumour that there is a third station involved in this as well.

  7. WIN WA used to carry TEN News until WIN bought STW9. WIN used to operate out of NEW10’s building until WIN bought STW9. WIN was being screwed by Nine over affiliation fees, so WIN taught Nine a lesson by switching SA affiliation to Seven. No, WIN is not “like Channel Nine”. Nine doesn’t own any shares in WIN. WIN is a Nine affiliate, except in SA, and in WA they carry a significant amount of TEN programming. And they’re hardly merging WIN & ABC. Not much different to the company owned by ATN7 and TEN in Sydney to operate their combined transmission facility at Artarmon.

  8. Oops! I need to make a few corrections to my last post…

    I moved into a lovely rock February last year & didn’t realise that the deal between SBS & Red Bee fell through. So, maybe SBS will be looking to join the new ABC/WIN joint venture in the future?

    Red Bee Australia is a subsidiary of the UK firm of the same name & isn’t owned by BBC anymore.

    Also, the 50/50 board representation between ABC & WIN seems fair at a second glance. Only because WIN have 32 separate markets to serve (if we also include Nine Perth & Adelaide), while ABC1 only has 8 markets.

  10. @Kenny
    Quote: “he’s after TEN. He already uses a lot of their programming in WA and uses Seven 100% in SA, chosen in preference to Nine. ”

    He may very well be after Ten, but the WA and SA channels are hardly an example of this. Nine’s ratings were taking a hit at the time and WIN had an obligation to it’s viewers and most of all advertisers to deliver the goods. They made use of Seven’s success in an area without Seven. As for WA, I wouldn’t say WIN use “a lot” of Ten programming. It’s scarce, and only a handful of shows get a spot.

  12. Wow! What a complete shock to read about these two networks hopping into bed together. I’ve never seen such a bizarre pairing since Scarlett Johansson & Ryan Reynolds got married.

    For massive play-out centres, I had my money on ABC joining SBS at the BBC owned Red Bee to centralise transmission from there; & of course, WIN together with PBL-Nine & Imparja would’ve been a natural fit for national programming.

    Apart from the loss of jobs on both sides, this may be good for Internet & HD viewers of ABC state-based programming, as they may finally be able to upload each & every 7pm news & Stateline to formats like iView & split the signal of ABC-HD after 7pm & 8:30pm.

    As for the make-up of the new organisation’s board: I think ABC should have a few more than WIN Corp because ABC’s transmission covers more geography. Yet, that might’ve been the bribe to get WIN on board (pardon the pun).

  13. Millions of $$$$$$ has been wasted at Ultimo.
    Now ABC management are going to join up with a pack of backyard cowboys.
    WIN’s signal might get better but ABC’s will get worse.
    WIN techs thought they could run a station without a backup Generator by using 2 separate mains power feeds – unfortunately they both came from the same sub station and Murphy struck with a vengance…..

  14. I’ve been tipping a young Murdoch would snap up 10 and Gordon the 9 Network by the end of this year. Maybe the two names could be switched, perhaps…?

  16. Anything that might improve the woeful technical quality of WIN would be welcome. eg sound levels on HD channel vary from inaudible to raucous.

  17. WIN own property etc. at Campbelltown. Own a radio station there. Also Campbelltown is mid-way between Sydney & Wollongong and good location for links. Gordon has a fistful of TEN shares and it’s no secret he’s waiting to snare TEN. He’s said so himself. If you mean Nine by your reference to “remnants of the Nork Network” David@Green point, no, he’s after TEN. He already uses a lot of their programming in WA and uses Seven 100% in SA, chosen in preference to Nine. As I’ve said several times, yeah, yeah, yeah, let’s all push for more channels and digital this and that in widescreen, 3D and whatever, but costs have to come from somewhere, and, as with Prime, it’s going to be the staff that pay for it.

  21. How bizarre!

    Choosing Campbelltown, NSW I guess makes sense. The city is kinda half way between Wollongiong and Sydney (but cheaper land inland than the coast!)

    But the marriage between ABC and WIN is just odd!

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