Southern Cross Austereo plans to increase local TV content, including news, after it switches to showing Nine Network programs in regional Victoria, Queensland and southern NSW, chief executive Grant Blackley has confirmed.
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Nine severed ties with long-standing regional partner WIN when it announced on Friday that its popular programming was switching to Southern Cross Austereo.
Under the five-year agreement, Southern Cross Austereo will pay Nine 50 per cent of its TV revenue to carry its branding and programs in those markets.
From July 1, shows like 60 Minutes, The Voice and The Block, and coverage of cricket and the National Rugby League, will move from WIN to Southern Cross Austereo channels, which will drop the programming of Network Ten and be re-branded as Nine.
WIN, owned by Bermuda-based billionaire Bruce Gordon, is expected to pick up Ten’s programs, which rank well behind Seven and Nine in the TV ratings.
The impact on WIN’s locally-produced news bulletins, including in the key cities of Canberra and Wollongong, as well as in regional Victoria and Queensland, is not clear.
WIN is not commenting on the end of its 27-year partnership with Nine.
But Mr Blackley indicated Southern Cross Austereo aimed to replicate WIN’s approach to local news.
“As WIN has done over many years, we will seek to bring the best national and international content to regional markets but then complement that with strong local content and we’ll do that in a manner not dissimilar to what audiences have been used to,” he said.
“We know that local content resonates strongly with regional audiences.”
WIN, with 750 employees, produces 15 half-hour local news bulletins each weekday across regional Australia.
Mr Blackley said the higher ratings and revenue that would flow from showing Nine programs would allow Southern Cross Austereo to scale up from its existing brief local news updates, which are shown in commercial breaks.
“It will take us a little time to gear up our resources but our intent is that at the earliest opportunity we would be broadcasting longer bulletins with more local content than Southern Cross has done before,” Mr Blackley said.
Southern Cross Austereo’s current affiliate deals with Seven and Ten in Tasmania, Darwin and regional South Australia will continue.
The company is seeking to extend its current agreement to carry Ten’s programs in northern NSW, where Nine owns Newcastle-based station NBN.
