Compiled by Andrew Bailey, Sofcom
For years the television landscape of regional Western Australia has
been a fairly quiet and peaceful one. The Golden West Network (GWN) had
around 450,000 viewers that it only had to share with ABC and, in some
areas, SBS.
But all that has now changed.
GWN now has a battle on its hands with the arrival of WIN Western
Australia... and the battle began a day early. Officially due to start on
26 March, WIN went to air the night before to broadcast news bulletins with
particular attention to Cyclone Vance that had swept across the state just
days before.
WIN's parent company paid around $36 million for the right to broadcast
into Western Australia, plus $14 million to set itself up, which it
believes is a steal compared to the $70 million that Prime Television paid
to buy GWN from Kerry Stokes.
Despite some confusion over possible network affiliations in the early
days, WIN Western Australia has since formed an affiliation with both Nine
and Ten Networks. GWN has now formally aligned with Seven, in line with
its eastern states counterparts at Prime Television.
The joint Nine/Ten affiliation has already seen some bold moves by WIN.
For a start, WIN has now setup its WA headquarters at the NEW10 premises
in Perth. WIN has also elected to relay NEW10's hour-long news service to
regional WA, giving preference over National Nine News
(which it relays in the eastern states). NEW10's 5pm bulletin rates second
only to Seven Nightly News at 6pm in Perth and it features
former GWN identity Christine Morrissey, which WIN hopes will give it some
advantage with regional viewers.
In the meantime, GWN will supplement its local Golden West
News (5.30pm) with the the top-rating Perth editions of
Seven Nightly News and Today Tonight at
6.00 and 6.30 respectively.
Through its new network of transmitters, and its satellite signal, WIN
already covers around 85 per cent of the total regional WA market. The
network now claims to being the largest regional network in Australia,
stretching across Queensland, Southern NSW, Tasmania, Victoria , the ACT
and now Western Australia, to a total potential audience of 4.7 million.
Despite being the top rating network in most of these markets and having
affiliation with two networks in the West, WIN will find a tough
competition up against GWN. WIN is mostly broadcasting via UHF which, for
many viewers, is a new wavelength and may require some initial re-tuning or
antenna upgrading.
GWN (mostly broadcasting on VHF) will hope to retain the loyalty gained
during its years as sole commercial network, and included in its Seven
affiliation it has the rights to the all-important AFL coverage and of
course the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
