NRN

NRN is a television station originating in Coffs Harbour, Australia owned by WIN Corporation, affiliated to Network Ten. The station was formally a partnership between NRN-11 Coffs Harbour (launched 23 January 1965) and RTN-8 Lismore (launched 12 May 1962).

History

Origins

NRN11 Coffs Harbour had merged with ECN8 Taree, but later demerged. Around 1971, RTN8 and NRN11 merged to form Northern Rivers Television (NRTV), but was known on-air originally as 11-8. The merged stations served the Mid North Coast and Northern Rivers areas of Northern New South Wales. During the mid-1970s, the station was known as Great Eastland Television, when the partnership shared programming and advertising with NEN-9 Tamworth and DDQ-10 Toowoomba/SDQ-4 Warwick, but they soon reverted to the NRTV brand.

In 1983, NRTV was relayed into the Gold Coast after a lobbying campaign from residents, although they could also watch the commercial television stations from Brisbane. NRTV's Gold Coast studios and offices were constructed in Ashmore on Southport Nerang Road. The Gold Coast facilities didn't contain a newsroom, although relayed local news from the Coffs Harbour studios. News crews from Lismore travelled to the Gold Coast for stories of importance.

NRTV produced a considerable amount of local activity (approximately five each week). Local contented included local news, three hours of live women's variety "Round About", 5 half-hours of live children's variety "Get Set" and "Razzamataz" weekly, holiday specials "Summerthon", and a half-hour daily exercise program "Jazzacize". Live sports specials included the annual "Grafton Cup" Racing Carnival and the Grafton to Inverell Cycling Classic.

Live programs mainly originated from the Coffs Harbour Studios with programs being recorded at both the networks other studios located at Lismore and Gold Coast.

Some of the memorable names from that era were:

• Ron Lawrence - Ron died in 2008. He was the driving force behind the network's local production. He began his career as booth announcer at the Lismore Radio and TV Studios of Northern Star Holdings (RTN 8) and (Radio 2LM) after graduating from Jim Illife's AIR-TV College in Brisbane. He moved to Coffs Harbour TV studios in the early 70s after the merge between NRN11 and RTN 8 and became the station announcer–news reader. Later in his career he became Program Manager then later Station Manager and finally General Manager before retiring in the 90s
• Wayne Magee, also a diploma graduate from the Brisbane College AIR-TV (formally with Radio 4GY Gympie, BCV TV Victoria and National Nine News Adelaide) started with the network in 1976. During his time with the network he hosted Get Set, network specials and telethons and read local TV news. He eventually moved into management before leaving the network to become a minister.
• Chris Wordsworth who hailed from Townsville QLD and who had worked previously in radio. Chris hosted the children's show for a period and read main bulletin news Monday to Friday. He later joined Channel Seven Sydney as late edition news reader – journalist, was briefly a Chief of Staff for a QLD Politician and later assumed the role of Director of ABC QLD/NT.
• Greg Hughes who succeeded Wordsworth as News Reader and station announcer. He formally had worked for the Mike Walsh owned Penrith radio station. In the early 1990s Greg moved to Canberra to join the 2CC Breakfast Club, a team that later moved to sister station Mix 106.3. Greg also presented the weather on Ten Capital in Canberra for several years from the mid-1990s to 2001. He left broadcasting to work for the Army PR Dept.

1990s to 2000s

1990 saw plans for NRTV to be merged with southern Queensland's Vision TV to form one super regional network to respond to the growing aggregation of television into regional areas of the nation, but they were called off. On 31 December 1991, Northern New South Wales became the third area to be aggregated, and NRTV, via links to Network Ten (it was part of Northern Star Holdings), owned by Westfield Group chairman Frank Lowy), became its affiliate in the region. At one stage, NRTV was the subject of a bid from WIN Television. Nothing came of it, had WIN gone through with the bid, it would have made NRTV the Nine Network affiliate (using the logos of its parent station in southern NSW and the campaigns of the Nine Network) and would have left NBN as Network Ten's affiliate instead in the area.

Southern Cross Ten office in Newcastle, New South Wales

NRTV was later sold to Telecasters Australia, who also owned the Queensland affiliate of Network Ten. In 1994, the station was renamed Ten Northern NSW, and its station identification was changed to that of Network Ten. The station stopped producing regional news for Coffs Harbour, Lismore and Gold Coast. They had previously produced a licence-wide bulletin, but that was axed due to poor ratings.

NRN launched One on 2 July 2009.

2010s

NRN launched Eleven on 11 January 2011, replacing a simulcast of the main channel.

On 1 July 2016, Southern Cross Ten's unique branding began to phase out on NRN in favour of Ten's mainstream branding as Ten. This comes after Southern Cross switched all of its SC10 stations (except NRN) as Southern Cross Nine as part of its new program supply agreement with the Nine Network. Southern Cross announced on 13 September 2016 that Ten HD would be launched on channel 52 on 21 September 2016.^[1][2] In addition, One was reduced to a standard definition broadcast to accommodate Ten HD.

In late January 2017, it was announced that Southern Cross had entered into negotiations with WIN Corporation, owners of regional Ten-affiliate WIN Television, over the sale of NRN in exchange for WIN's Wollongong radio station i98FM.^[3][4] This deal would have expanded WIN's television coverage across all regional markets in the eastern states and granted Southern Cross radio coverage in Wollongong. Southern Cross later withdrew from negotiations on 20 February 2017 with no explanation given.^[5][6] However, WIN and Southern Cross later finalised an agreement where they would sell NRN to WIN for a total of $55 million,^[7][8][9] with the sale taking effect on 31 May 2017.^[10][11] WIN has not currently rebranded the station, temporarily maintaining it with Ten branding. Also, playout and transmission has not yet been transferred to Mediahub in Sydney's suburb of Ingleburn (where WIN TV's playout is based).

News

From 2004, Southern Cross produce short local news updates which are broadcast throughout the day. These bulletins are branded as Ten Local News Updates from 1 July 2016. The updates are produced from Southern Cross' Canberra studios and makes use of news content from local radio stations owned by Southern Cross Austereo in each market. Local sport and weather reports also aired on an sporadic basis. Short updates are also aired throughout the day and evening alongside updates from Ten Eyewitness News. The bulletins are researched, produced and presented by a single journalist.

Since WIN Television's purchase in 2017, it has not yet announced intentions to produce a full half-hour WIN News bulletin for the region. For the meantime, under WIN's ownership, NRN will continue to provide the Southern Cross-produced news updates from Canberra until further notice.

As a Network Ten affiliate, NRN also transmits Studio 10, The Project and Ten Eyewitness News.

Main transmitters

• 1. HAAT estimated from http://www.itu.int/SRTM3/ using EHAAT.
• 2. The Richmond and Tweed station was an independent station with the callsign RTN from its 1962 sign-on until aggregation in 1991.
• 3. Analogue services ceased transmission as of 27 November 2012 as part of national conversion to digital-only television
• 4. NRN was originally licensed to broadcast on VHF 10 but in August 1965 received approval to change to 11 following reports that the Channel 10 signal was prone to interference ^[12]

References

See also

• Regional television in Australia
• WIN Television