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30 years of regional aggregation

Regional viewers went from one commercial network to 3 under a move by the Hawke government.

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Today marks the 30th anniversary of the aggregation of TV in regional markets.

In 1989 viewers Southern NSW were given 3 commercial television channel, under a move by the Hawke government to halt a Packer monopoly.

While WIN entered the Canberra market with a studio facility and Capital  set up an office in Wollongong, neither of them had transmission in  Wagga, Orange or Dubbo. Prime, on the other hand, built brand new, fully operational stations in  both Canberra and Wollongong and had them on air from the start while  continuing to operate their original stations at Wagga and Orange/Dubbo  as part of the SNSW aggregated market and operations in  Tamworth/Taree and Albury prior to aggregation in those markets in subsequent years.

Other regional areas in NSW, Queensland and Victoria would follow.

5 Responses

  1. I’m in Canberra and the story we heard at the time was that Bob Hawke wanted aggregation because he wanted to watch the AFL at The Lodge. The only commercial station Capital (owned by Network TEN) only showed the rugby and it was six years before Galaxy pay TV and Premier Sports Network (which became Foxtel and Fox Sports).

  2. One of the better decisions made by the Hawk government. Who would of thought back then we would have the choice we currently enjoy. Going from 2 stations to 5 was a huge leap (ABC, SBS and 3 FTA).

    1. What Murdoch monopoly? They don’t have TV (apart from Sky which I read in the Guardian repeatedly had no audience) and Fairfax and the ABC dominate radio and TV. If you are talking about circulation, if Fairfax hadn’t allowed itself to alienate its base by printing Guardian-lite, there would be more competition for the capital cities for newspapers.

  4. Maybe for the majority of regional areas, but meanwhile for small areas like the MIA they were deemed by the Government to be too small to accommodate multiple commercial channels and it wasn’t until the mid 90s when the ABA relaxed rules that a second channel could be added, and not until 2000 when Section 38B of the Broadcasting Act was added that a third channel could be added. Sorry David not to take away from your story which is true for most, but for the little guys the story is a little different and I figured I’d share my knowledge.

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