Prime Television

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For the New Zealand television network, see Prime Television New Zealand.
For the listed company that owns this network, see Prime Television Limited.
Prime Television
Prime TV Logo
Type Broadcast television network
Country Australia
Availability Regional Australia
Slogan “Bringing It Home”
Owner Prime Television Limited
Key people Warwick Syphers, CEO
Paul Ramsay, Chairman
Launch date 1989
Affiliation Seven Network
Website primetv.com.au

Prime Television is an Australian television network affiliated to the Seven Network in regional New South Wales, the ACT, and Victoria and in Western Australia as Golden West Network. It also broadcasts to Griffith under license through WIN Television. It is owned by the listed company Prime Television Limited.

Contents

[edit] History

The stations that combined to form Prime Television were:

One station has historically been part of the Prime network of stations, however is now owned by another group:

[edit] Northern New South Wales

NEN-9 Tamworth began on 27 September 1965, with a relay in Armidale (NEN-1, later NEN-10) on 15 July 1966. ECN-8 Taree began on 27 May 1966.

At one stage, ECN-8 was merged with NRN-11 Coffs Harbour (now part of Southern Cross Ten Northern NSW), but they broke away, later merging with NEN-9, forming NEN-9/ECN-8. Before 1991, their logo was a silhouette of an Aboriginal standing one-legged leaning on spears.

Prime Television purchased the station, aligning it with the Seven Network (like its Southern NSW counterparts) and changing ECN-8's call sign to NEN-8. On 31 December 1991, Prime Television became the Northern NSW affiliate of the Seven Network, in competition with NRTV (now Southern Cross Ten) and NBN.

[edit] Southern New South Wales

CBN-8 Orange began on 17 March 1962, and CWN-6 Dubbo began on 1 December 1965, becoming the first station to relay another station's programming completely, and the first regional television network. RVN-2 Wagga Wagga began on 19 June 1964, MTN-9 Griffith began on 15 December 1965.

In the early 1970s, due to the financial difficulties many single-stations faced, MTN-9 joined CWN-6 and CBN-8, forming Television 6, 8, 9, later on becoming Midstate 6, 8, 9. Relays were launched in Portland (4), Lithgow (6), Mudgee (9), Cobar, Kandos and Rylstone (10) and Bathurst (11).

In 1986, RVN/AMV and Midstate 6, 8, 9 merged to become The Prime Network, later to become Prime Television, in readiness for aggregation, and began an affiliation with the Seven Network.

There were problems with aggregation, with transmission problems in the old Orange/Dubbo and Wagga areas. This caused the aggregation to be handled in two stages, the ACT and the South Coast on March 31, 1989, and in the Orange/Dubbo and Wagga on December 31, 1989. It forced the de-merger of RVN-AMV, and RVN-2 became CBN-2.

Griffith wasn't included in aggregation, and as a result, MTN-9 became an affiliate of the Nine Network, the feed came from WIN Television. In 1996, MTN-9 successfully bid for a supplementary license, AMN-31, which is a feed from Prime Television Canberra. In 1996, WIN Television brought MTN/AMN, MTN-9 becoming WIN Television Griffith. AMN-31, though owned by WIN Television, is still branded as Prime Television.

[edit] Victoria

AMV-4 Albury/Wodonga began on 7 September 1964. In 1971, RVN-2 and AMV-4 merged to become the Riverina and North East Victoria Television Service, known on air as RVN-AMV. Five years later, RVN took over transmission of AMV from its Wagga studios. Relays in Young (6) and a second Wagga channel (11) were started in this time.

In 1983, daylight saving time caused problems for RVN-AMV, since NSW and Victoria ended their daylight saving periods at different times. To combat this, RVN's output was recorded, and shown an hour later on AMV for three weeks. Until aggregation, RVN-AMV was in the unique situation of showing different programs in Wagga and in Albury, on what was effectively the one station. Wagga took news and sport (namely rugby league) from Sydney, while Albury received news and sport (Australian rules football) from Melbourne.

In 1986, RVN-AMV and Midstate 6, 8, 9 merged to become The Prime Network, later to become Prime Television, in readiness for aggregation, and began an affiliation with the Seven Network. In December 1989, RVN-AMV de-merged, and AMV became Prime Television Victoria.

Prime became the Seven Network affiliate in Victoria in 1992, competing with Southern Cross Network (later SCN, Ten Victoria, and now Southern Cross Ten Victoria) and Television Victoria (otherwise known as VIC TV, now WIN Television Victoria).

In 1997, Prime won the second license for Mildura, which hadn't been aggregated, in competition with WIN Television. Its callsign is PTV-31.

[edit] Western Australia

Main article: Golden West Network

Golden West Network (GWN) began as four smaller stations; BTW-3 Bunbury, VEW-8 Kalgoorlie, GSW-9 Geraldton and GSW-9 Albany.

In the early 1980s, Jack Bendant purchased BTW/GSW and changed the name to Golden West Network. In 1985, GWN was granted a license to broadcast to remote Western Australia via satellite. GWN acquired VEW-8 in 1985 and GTW-11 in 1987. Current Seven Network chairman Kerry Stokes purchased GWN in 1988.

Prime Television purchased GWN in November 1996 for AU$71 million.[1] GWN became the Seven affiliate in Western Australia in 1999 following the introduction of WIN Television WA, who acquired the Nine Network and Network Ten affiliations.

[edit] Programming

Prime Possum
Prime Possum

Prime's programming schedule is almost identical to Channel Seven, aside from limited local programming. Currently, the only regular local programming is:

  • Prime News (see below)
  • The Saturday Club, a children's program shown on Saturday mornings at 9.00am featuring network mascot Prime Possum
  • X:Press, a music program broadcast late Friday nights, repeated Saturday afternoons.

Prime also broadcast Prime InfoNet, short updates listing local community events.

Prime's post-midnight television schedule also differs from the Seven Network feed, containing infomercials from Danoz Direct, Home Shopping, and a feed from pay television channel Expo. Prime rejoin the Seven Network feed at 6.00am for Sunrise.

Past programming from Prime Television has been recognised nationally, with some local productions winning Logie Awards for 'Outstanding Contribution by a Regional Television Station'. Logies were presented for:

  • Goin' Down The Road (CBN-8, 1979)
  • Naturally (NEN-9/ECN-8, 1984)
  • Stranded (Prime Television, 1993)
  • Rest in Peace (Prime Television, 1994)
  • No Time For Frailty (Prime Television, 1996)

[edit] News & Current Affairs

Prime News is the title of Prime Television's local news service. Only some stations receive full news bulletins, others have short news updates. Markets with full news bulletins include:

Presenters: Helen Ballard (news and weather), David McHugh (sport)
Presenter: Alison Reis (news, sport and weather).
Presenters: Fiona Ferguson (news and weather), John Hyde (sport), Reena Ganga (fill-in presenter)
Presenters: Doug Hogan (news, sport and weather)
Presenters: Noel Brunning (news), Troy Hynam (sport), Shauna Willis/Chris Mills (weather)

Most bulletins are presented live from local studios. In Orange/Dubbo, Tamworth/Taree and Wagga Wagga, Prime News is broadcast weeknights at 6.00pm, followed by a delayed bulletin of Seven News. In Albury/Wodonga and Western Australia, the bulletin airs at 5.30pm weeknights.

In 2000 Prime ceased local news broadcasts on the Gold Coast, and closed their Moree bureau which provided news for their Tamworth service, whilst in 2001 Prime stopped news services in Newcastle, Wollongong and Canberra, citing poor ratings, and replaced it with Seven News and Today Tonight.[2] All other services were maintained. Later that year the Australian Broadcasting Authority launched an investigation into the axing of local news programs by Prime and rival Southern Cross Ten. The investigation found that not enough locally produced programs and so the ABA set out new rules forcing all stations in aggregated markets to produce at least 45 minutes of local programming per week. In early 2004, Prime recommenced local news in Newcastle, Wollongong and Canberra in the form of two minute updates.

Many of its former news presenters and journalists read like a who's who of Australian Television and Radio, including Jessica Rowe (ex-Canberra News, now Nine Network Presenter), Kylie Gillies (ex- Tamworth News, now Seven Network Sports Presenter), Kerryn Johnston (ex- Wollongong News, now WIN Television Wollongong Newsreader) and Grant Denyer (ex- Wagga Wagga News, now Seven Network Presenter).

Presenters: Natalie Forrest (news and sport), Daniel Gibson (weather), Kara Douglas (fill-in presenter)
  • Weekend Weather Updates
Presenter: Craig Moore

[edit] Station identifiers

From 1991 to 1995, Prime used local versions of Seven's IDs, and the "Your Local Station". From 1995 to 2001, Prime used IDs featuring local people and locations, and the slogan "This is Where We Live".

In 2001, Prime began using "7 on Prime" branded IDs, later dropped, and a new logo and slogan, "Bringing It Home to Me", based on music from the Go-Betweens.

In 2004, Prime finally began using new IDs and a new jingle from their 2001 slogan.

In 2007, Prime revamped their IDs and dropped the "to Me" part of their slogan, settling with "Bringing It Home".

[edit] Logos

Prime has used many logos throughout its history.

Used from circa 1990 to 2002 Used from 2002 to the present
1991 - 2001 2001 - Present

[edit] References

  1. ^ Kidman, Matthew. "Prime buys Golden West", Sydney Morning Herald, 1996-11-13, p. 29.
  2. ^ Macguire, Toby. "Regional TV news gets axe", The Daily Telegraph, 2001-06-09, p. 17.

[edit] External links

 v • d • e Free-To-Air Television Channels in Australia

ABC TV | ABC2 | Channel Seven | Channel Nine | Channel Ten | SBS TV

Regional Affiliate Networks: Prime (GWN) | Southern Cross | Imparja | NBN | WIN | Southern Cross Ten
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