WIN Television is group of Australian television stations. Owned and operated by Wollongong-based WIN Corporation, its name originates from its first station, Wollongong's WIN-4.
The company's stations hold the Nine Network affiliations in Darwin, Regional Queensland, Gold Coast, Australian Capital Territory, Northern, Southern and Western New South Wales, Griffith, Regional Victoria, Mildura, Tasmania, Eastern South Australia, and Regional Western Australia. It also holds affiliations for the Seven Network and Network 10 in selected markets. WIN also produces and broadcasts weeknight half-hour local news bulletins across its Queensland, ACT, southern New South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania markets under the WIN News branding.
History Early years in Wollongong
Television Wollongong Transmission Limited (TWT) was incorporated on 4 October 1955 by a group of local businessmen. Five years later, it was awarded a licence by the Postmaster-General's Department over a number of other groups aligned to Sydney-based stations ATN-7 and TCN-9 to broadcast to the Illawarra and South Coast regions. The new station was to broadcast on the VHF-4 frequency, using the callsign WIN (which stood for Wollongong Illawarra New South Wales), in line with other Australian call signs.
1980–1999: aggregation and expansion
During this period, WIN expanded through the purchase of stations in Victoria, Queensland, and New South Wales. In 1984, WIN became the first regional television station to transmit stereophonic sound. Close links between WIN Television and the Nine Network ensured the Nine Network affiliation for southern New South Wales when aggregation occurred in March 1989. The changes meant that WIN expanded into the rest of southern New South Wales, launching new stations in Canberra, Orange, Bathurst, Dubbo, and Wagga Wagga, with new buildings and studios built in Orange, Wagga, and Canberra. Aggregation also provided the network with two additional competitors, The Prime Network and Capital Television.
In 1990, WIN purchased Queensland station Star TV, with stations in Rockhampton (RTQ) and the Darling Downs (DDQ and SDQ), just weeks before aggregation was to occur in regional Queensland. The station had already been set to become a Network 10 affiliate under its previous owners; however, WIN's links with the Nine Network enabled it to clinch the Nine Network affiliation away from QTV, which was then forced to affiliate with third-placed Network Ten with just days to go.
ENT Limited, a Launceston-based company that owned a number of television and radio stations in regional Victoria and Tasmania, was taken over by WIN in 1994. Television Victoria and TasTV were, as a result, rebranded as WIN Television. The network further expanded to Griffith in 1998, when WIN purchased MTN-9 Griffith and its supplementary station AMN-31 from its local owners. As MTN had been affiliated with WIN since the early 1990s, the station was easily integrated into the network.
WIN became regional Western Australia's second commercial television network on 26 March 1999 after winning the rights tender in 1997. Prior to the launch of the new station, GWN held a commercial monopoly on the market. GWN became an affiliate of the Seven Network, while WIN took a combination of Nine Network and Network Ten programming. Despite Nine's traditional ratings dominance throughout most of the country, incumbent GWN has remained the market's most-watched station. The second ratings survey of 2006 placed WIN Television with a 34.7% commercial audience share in prime-time, compared to the Golden West Network with 65.3%.
Also in 1999, WIN purchased two stations in South Australia: SES-8 in Mount Gambier and RTS-5a in the Riverland region. They became known as WIN SA. In 2002, supplementary licences were granted under Section 38A of the Broadcasting Services Act, allowing the network to launch a WIN Ten service using the MGS call sign in Mount Gambier and LRS in the Riverland. This enabled the main SES/RTS station to be a sole Nine Network affiliate, which lasted until 2007, when a supply agreement was made with Seven.
As well as the flagship weeknightly WIN News bulletin, WIN has been prolific in broadcasting relevant programmes for its audience. In the past, it produced current affairs programming, including the community affairs programme Roving Eye, and Sunday Review, a weekly review of international, national, and local stories. It produced a mid-week rugby league wrap panel show in the mid-1990s, while in 1995, WIN Television Queensland produced its own rugby league coverage by televising games featuring the fledgeling North Queensland Cowboys in their maiden ARL Winfield Cup competition season.
2000–2016: Nine affiliation
WIN Television began to introduce digital television soon after it became available to metropolitan areas in January 2001. Under Section 38A of the Broadcasting Services Act, the network was able to introduce, in partnership with other stations, additional digital-only Network Ten affiliates. These included Tasmania's TDT, launched in late 2003 in partnership with Southern Cross Broadcasting, and Mildura's MDV in January 2006, with Prime Television.
On 30 May 2007, WIN purchased NWS from Southern Cross Broadcasting for A$105 million. Similarly, STW Perth, owned by Sunraysia Television and affiliated with the Nine Network, was purchased on 8 June 2007 for A$163.1 million.
Despite the station's ownership of Nine Perth, the regional WIN WA service continued to broadcast Ten News Perth, produced for and shown on rival Perth station Ten Perth, until 27 August 2007, when Ten West came into service.
A conflict between WIN and its long-time metropolitan partner, the Nine Network, arose in mid-2007, with PBL Media, Nine's parent company, requesting 40 percent of the network's advertising revenue in return for programme supply. WIN's owner, WIN Corporation, rejected this offer, expecting to pay only 29% (a 3% decrease from the previous contract and in line with many of the network's competitors, such as Prime Television and Southern Cross Ten). The network's owner, Bruce Gordon, subsequently threatened to sever the network's affiliation after negotiations stagnated, stating that his previous position at Paramount Pictures meant he could programme the network independently. On 16 August 2007, WIN Television dropped key Nine Network programmes from its daytime television schedule, including Mornings with Kerri-Anne and National Nine News: Morning Edition. WIN also secured a new programme supply agreement for its regional South Australian station with Nine's rival Seven Network. Announced on 4 September 2007, the new programme schedule included a mixture of Seven and existing WIN programming, commencing on 1 October 2007. WIN also started producing some local Australian programmes to replace key Nine content, including Alive and Cooking and Susie, and acquired the American talk show The Ellen DeGeneres Show. WIN also produced Fishing Australia as part of its local content output on the WIN Network. Two years later, WIN officially reinstated its supply of Nine content to regional South Australia with a new supplementary channel, WIN SA, relaying NWS from Adelaide.
On 9 August 2009, WIN began transmission of the new digital channel GO! on channel 88 in Southern NSW, Regional Victoria, Tasmania, and Regional Queensland. It soon reached Mildura in 2010 and regional SA in 2011.
In June 2010, playout was moved from WIN's Wollongong headquarters to its new Media Hub facility in the south-west Sydney suburb of Ingleburn, co-owned with ABC Television.
On 26 September 2010, WIN began transmission of the HD digital channel GEM on channel 80 in Southern NSW, Regional Victoria, Tasmania, and Regional Queensland.
On 1 May 2012, WIN began transmission of an SD digital infomercial channel, Gold, on channel 84. The second infomercial channel, Gold2, began on 13 July 2013 as a five-hour timeshift of Gold.
Following Nine's launch of 9HD and 9Life on 26 November 2015 and WIN's promise of following suit, WIN began broadcasting a "coming soon" test pattern on channels 85 and 86 on 10 February 2016. Both channels began broadcasting on 1 March 2016. As a result, their channel listing was reshuffled to match Nine's metropolitan with 9Gem on channel 82, 9Go! on channel 83, 9Life on channel 84, Extra on channel 85, and Gold on channel 86.
The network continued to produce its own local news service, WIN News, for most of its markets throughout its Nine affiliation, although requests for increased revenue by Nine repeatedly threatened the news division's viability. By 2016, only twelve bulletins were being produced and presented.
2016–2021: 10 affiliation After Nine launched its new online catch-up video on demand and live streaming service 9Now on 27 January 2016, WIN filed a lawsuit against Nine, claiming that live streaming into regional areas breached their exclusive affiliation agreement. Justice Hammerschlag of the NSW Supreme Court dismissed the case on 28 April 2016, ruling that the definition of "broadcasting" in WIN's affiliation agreement with the Nine Network did not cover internet streaming "and that Nine is under no express or implied obligation not to do it".
Shortly after WIN's legal defeat, Nine announced a new $500 million, five-year programme supply agreement with Southern Cross Austereo, the Ten affiliate. This saw Southern Cross Austereo's stations in Southern NSW, the ACT, and regional areas in Victoria and Queensland switch to Nine affiliation at midnight on 1 July 2016. With that announcement, WIN was effectively stripped of its 27-year partnership with Nine. In response, WIN entered affiliation talks with Network Ten, in which Gordon held a significant stake, reaching a final agreement on 23 May 2016. From 1 July 2016, WIN carried Ten programming into its regional Queensland, Southern NSW, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, and Western Australia markets. Supplementary station deals were left until late due to disagreement over the rate that loss-making stations should make to Nine Network. With just days left, deals were secured for South Australia, Griffith, and Tasmania. However, no deal was secured for the Western Australia joint venture West Digital Television before 1 July, but a deal was later finalised on 2 July 2016, with the relay of Nine content commencing that night. The channel changes reshuffled WIN's LCN listing, with One on LCNs 81 and 86, Eleven on LCN 82, TVSN on LCN 84, and Gold on LCN 85. WIN and WIN HD remained on LCNs 8 and 80. WIN also relocated its SD simulcast from LCN 81 to LCN 88.
Negotiations in January 2017 for WIN to acquire Northern New South Wales station NRN in exchange for WIN's Wollongong radio station i98FM with Southern Cross Austereo failed, although a deal was secured on 28 March 2017 for the sole sale of NRN to WIN for $55 million. The sale took effect on 31 May 2017; NRN was rebranded as WIN on 1 September 2017, with playout and transmission transferred to WIN, while the LCNs were reshuffled to align with WIN's other stations, although they stayed as 5-numbered due to 8-numbering already held by Nine-owned NBN Television for Northern NSW.
On 28 May 2018, WIN announced a new programme supply agreement with the Australian News Channel to carry Sky News Australia content on a new free-to-air channel, Sky News on WIN, which launched on 2 September 2018. The channel consisted of mixed Sky News and Fox Sports News programming, along with WIN's All Australian News, while Sky programmes gained access to WIN's regional news stories.
WIN converted TVSN to MPEG-4 SD on 30 August 2018, two days before the launch of Sky News on WIN.