TDT: “All ongoing arrangements are very short term”
Tassie broadcaster acknowledges that regional broadcasters everywhere were having to make “tough decisions."
- Published by David Knox
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Southern Cross Austereo has commented on the state of play for Tasmanian broadcaster TDT.
The broadcaster, which screens Network 10 programming is jointly owned with WIN.
The comments follow the closure of Mildura Digital TV on Sunday, jointly owned by WIN and Seven.
SCA, which owns 50% of TDT, and 100% of 7 Tasmania confirmed “no discussions” have taken place around turning off the 10 signal, but stressed that the industry needs desperate help from the Federal Government.
“TDT is profitable. There are no plans for TDT to shut down in the next three years,” an SCA spokesperson has told Pulse.
“SCA is focused on audio and has considered various options for sale of its television assets in recent years.”
A TDT spokesperson also acknowledged that regional broadcasters everywhere were having to make “tough decisions” to protect their businesses.
“Like MDT there are a number of joint ventures around Australia that will be running on a knife’s edge and TDT is no exception,” they said.
“While SCA and WIN have no plan for its closure, all ongoing arrangements are very short term. There is constant assessment, not only for TDT, but the future of all regional broadcast services.”
Indeed, “no plans” today does not mean change may be looming next month…..WIN’s position on TDT is less forthcoming, and it isn’t clear if SCA’s public comments could be strategic should change be looming.
Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff also called on the Federal Government to take action to preserve regional TV services.
“We will always stand up for Tasmanians and the Federal Government needs to do whatever it can to ensure regional broadcasters can continue to deliver content to Tasmanian audiences,” he told Pulse.
11 Responses
You’d like to think TDT is a fair bit more profitable than MDT was, given that the Tasmanian market has approximately 550k viewers: Some 8-9 times more than Mildura!
Having said that…while refraining from posting exact numbers, a quick look at weekly figures on the RegionalTAM website tell me the SCA-owned Seven affiliate is still dominating the ratings in Tasmania with the ABC a distant 2nd. WIN Nine is ahead of TDT Ten for the year overall so far (and you’d think Paris 2024 should help boost the ratings of all Nine stations), however MasterChef pushed TDT into 3rd spot for the week of June 16-22.
… incidentally, what’s amusing/sad about that pic is the building was originally designed and built to house just ABC radio and when ABC TV moved to the site there were cries of outrage that nothing would fit … now look at it …
What am I missing?! Does 10 not have the power, finance or both to transmit in Mildura? Likewise with TDT, are 10 unable to transmit on their own?
10 does not own the licence in Mildura, which is being handed back to ACMA by WIN / Seven.
Normally, if 10 were interested, MDV and 10 would apply to ACMA to transfer the licence, or Mildura Digital Television Pty Ltd and 10 would arrange for the shareholdings in the company to be transferred to 10, thus transferring ownership of the licence. Perhaps 10 wasn’t interested?
The Federal Government of the day must have foreseen these unfortunate situations when they decided on the aggregation of the Australian television market back in the 80s.
Personally, some of us are surprised it’s taken this long.
Soon, it’ll just be three nationwide commercial signals.
… yep they were most certainly aware of what they were doing because the regional industry kept telling them so in no uncertain terms … it was when the rules came out stating that markets could choose between Multi-Channel-Services and Aggregation, but if just one of the three in each market chose aggregation then everyone had to do it, the battle for the future of regional television had been lost …
To be fair, the general public desperately wanted it.
]To go from 1 station broadcasting around 16 hours a day, to 3 stations broadcasting 24 hours a day.
All those shows we wanted to see (either for the first time or repeats) that we were never able to see, due to the local station being forced to selectively pick from 7,9, and 0/10 to fit into their limited slots.
I’m still catching up on TV movies from the late 60s to early 80s on YouTube that I wanted to see, which were broadcast multiple times in the 4 major capital cities, but never in my region.
… to be fair, the general public desperately wanted additional commercial television services, which they would have had under the Multi-Channel-Services option put forward by the existing regional stations, but that was ruled out in favour of aggregation and competition with the result that the regional television industry was forced into massive additional costs while having to slash advertising rates which forced radio and press to slash theirs to compete which sent them all broke which allowed major corporations to buy them all up and cause the “concentration of media ownership” that everyone complains about …
The aggregation was a great idea but some decisions made by the federal government of the day were bewildering to say the least. For example:
Leaving Mildura out of Western Victoria licence market (which eventually led to the MDT joint venture and its recent closure)
Leaving Griffith out of Southern NSW licence market
Not immediately introducing separate new channels in Tasmania, regional Queensland, SA, NT and WA, so that Seven, Nine and Ten each had their own equivalent affiliated channel and not having to share airtime. Had it happened, Ten’s programming would not have disappeared from Darwin for four years in the mid 2000s.
Other “tough decisions” for Tasmania include no 7 Flix, no 7 Bravo, and less HD stations.