NBN Television

TV Week reporting NBN as the first regional station in New South Wales in 1962.

NBN's original owner, the Newcastle Broadcasting and Television Corporation (NBTC) was founded in May 1958 to begin preparations for the upcoming television licence allocations. The main shareholders in NBTC were United Broadcasting Company (owned by the Lamb family, owners of radio station 2KO), Airsales Broadcasting Company (owners of local radio station 2HD), and the Newcastle Morning Herald & Miners Advocate (to be bought out by John Fairfax & Sons). In accordance with the Australian Broadcasting Control Board regulations, at least 50% of the company had to be locally owned. 750,000 shares were made available by the NBTC (at 10 shillings, equivalent to $1 each). Approximately 2000 people bought shares.[6]

The Australian Broadcasting Control Board awarded the commercial television licence for the Newcastle and Hunter Valley area to the NBTC on 1 August 1961. NBN-3 would transmit on VHF channel 3, from a transmitter atop Mount Sugarloaf near Newcastle. Council approval for the transmitter was issued on 17 July that year.[6]

The call-letters, NBN, were derived from the company's name, Newcastle Broadcasting and Television Corporation, with the second N representing New South Wales, as required by law. Unofficially, it stood for Newcastle Broadcasting Network.[3]

Construction began in November 1961, supervised by engineers from RCA in the United States.[6] It was a step backwards for RCA, building a new station transmitting in black and white while colour television was fast becoming the norm in the United States. Ninety per cent of the original equipment was imported from the United States, and held in bond until they were due to be installed. Equipment was purchased with colour production and transmission in mind, so that only 20% modification would be required when colour came to NBN. Studios were to be built on a 3-acre (1.2 ha) block at Mosbri Crescent, near the city centre.

Work on the 142 m (466 ft) transmitter was delayed by a combination of weather, the conditions for the road leading to Mount Sugarloaf, and excited sightseers blocking work trucks during the weekends.[6] During that time, the technical team stayed at the top of the mountain. The construction took eight months at a cost of $1.5 million, and required staff to work seven days a week (except on Christmas Day) to make the deadline.[6]

Test transmissions took place in early 1962, and could be seen as far away as Muswellbrook, Avalon, Katoomba, Lithgow, Gloucester and around Port Kembla.[6]

Murray Finlay began his career as one of Australia's longest-serving newsreaders with NBN's first bulletin

NBN Television commenced transmission on 4 March 1962. The first programme on launch night began at 6pm, a taped welcome by the then-Postmaster General Charles Davidson. Following that was a guided tour around the NBN studios by the original production manager, Matthew Tapp.[3]

Murray Finlay began one of the longest newsreading careers in Australia with NBN's first news bulletin at 6:30 pm. This was followed by The Phil Silvers Show at 7 pm, and the 1937 movie Green Light starring Errol Flynn at 7:30; the George Sanders Theatre series followed at 9 pm, with opening episode, The Man in the Elevator, followed by the first episode from the Halls of Ivy, then the first Mystery Theatre program, The Missing Head at 10 pm. Anglican Bishop James Housden gave the first evening meditation at 10:30 pm, marking the end of the first night of transmission for NBN-3 in Newcastle. Commercials on the first night included Rothmans, Streets Ice Cream, Ampol, Commonwealth Bank, Shell, and WD & HO Wills, amongst others.[3]

In the lead-up to the opening night, the station promised at least two movies a week, as well as men's interest programs each Saturday afternoon between 3 pm and 4 pm – a commitment successfully met, along with female-targeted programming in the early afternoon, and children's programming from 4:30 to 6:30 pm weekdays and mature programming thirty minutes before closedown each night. NBN Television broadcast fifty-six hours in its first week of transmission, setting the Australian television record for the most time spent on air in a week for a new television station.[3]

Soon after launch night, NBN extended television coverage from Bungwahl to Broken Bay and as far west as Aberdeen. The station only operated eight hours per day, however several programs were produced locally including Home at Three, Let's Cook With Gas, Tempo, Focus, as well as nightly news bulletins at 6:30 pm.[3]

In 1963, Australian Consolidated Press and News Limited bought 200,000 shares in the Newcastle Broadcasting and Television Corporation. Shortly after, United Broadcasting Company sold its shares to Neatherley Investments Limited in Adelaide, and Australian United Investments in Melbourne, with each company purchasing 100,000 shares. Time Enterprises, purchased Australian United Investments’ shares in November 1967.[3]

During the period between 1968 and 1969, NBN secured a relay from the Postmaster-General to enhance their news service. In 1970, NBN began upgrading its studios in preparation for the commencement of colour television originally scheduled for 1972, later changed to March 1975, at a cost of $360,000. The improvements included an enlarged film department; a film editing and cleaning equipment; a larger master control with four video transfer machines; a new telecine room with caption scanner and slide drums; as well as an expansion of the administration and staff offices, which also included new offices and a boardroom.[3]

In 1972, NBN was granted a licence to operate a translator in the Upper Hunter from Rossgole Lookout near Aberdeen, on VHF channel 10. Concurrently in April 1972, NBN expanded its nightly news service to one hour, becoming the first television station in Australia to have a one-hour news bulletin.[7] As a part of earlier preparations for colour production, between 1972 and 1973, orders were placed with Rank Cintel and the EMI Group in the United Kingdom and Ampex in the United States for new colour equipment, in time for colour transmission tests on 7 October 1974. On 1 March 1975, the station began regular colour transmissions, whilst transmission was expanded to Banderra Downs, Merriwa, Mount Helen, and Murrurundi at a cost of $180,000. In 1978, the Newcastle Broadcasting and Television Corporation made a bid for local station (and former owner) 2HD, however was disallowed by the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal.[8] Also during the same year more extensions were added to the studios (which included a new car park), which were officially opened on 17 November 1978.[9]

On 22 November 1979 the Newcastle Broadcasting and Television Corporation officially became NBN Limited, after the station itself rebranded from Channel 3 to NBN Television around 1977.[10] By the late 1970s, NBN was producing 20 hours a week of local and networked programming from its studios, which in turn led the station to purchase a Bell Jet Ranger helicopter for news coverage purposes.[9]

In early 1980, NBN purchased Southern Television Corporation Limited, owners of NWS-9 in Adelaide, for $19 million. During the same year, NBN began a teletext service and also purchased the free local newspaper, the Newcastle Star. In June 1981 Parry Corporation purchased 19.88% shareholding.[11][12]

Parry had then attempted to buy Michael Wansey's stake in NBN, but was blocked by the Supreme Court of New South Wales. It was later revealed that the Lambs had opposed NBN's purchase of the Star newspaper (created and owned by Wansey) and the attempt to buy 2HD. The company also faced possible suspension from the Australian Stock Exchange if a decision was not made soon. To resolve the tension, NBN sold NWS-9 to the Lambs in exchange for the majority stake in NBN in 1982. With the buy-out of community shares in NBN, the station ceased to be what Hunter residents considered to be "their own". It came at a cost. Wansey mortgaged his shares to Parry who called in the debt.

On 16 March 1983, Parry Corporation completed the purchase of NBN, delisting the company.[13] Michael Wansey resigned from the board at the end of the year as a result. In 1984, plans for a second independent station in Newcastle had failed. During that time, NBN and ABC Newcastle (call sign ABHN-5A) were asked to leave the VHF band to accommodate FM radio. At the time, NBN's audio carrier frequency could be listened to with a standard FM radio.

It was planned for NBN to transmit on UHF channel 51, and the ABC on UHF channel 48, however this did not eventuate. A proposal to launch a radiated subscription television service with community broadcasting during the daytime hours had also failed that year.[14]

NBN's headquarters on Mosbri Crescent in Newcastle. As of 26 May 2007, administration and the studio are to the right and left respectively.

In the late 1980s, NBN's Perth-based owner, Parry Corporation, spun off NBN Limited into a new company, NBN Enterprises, and took a 40 per cent stake in the new company, with Security Pacific Capital Corporation buying 60 per cent, sold their stake soon after, holding onto Papua New Guinea television station NTN, which NBN had helped to set up. Fulcrum Media's move to later purchase the station was a source for confusion, as it was revealed that many companies, including the NSW State Superannuation Board and Westpac, held substantial stakes in Fulcrum Media.[15] Parry Corporation's new owner CityWest issued a court challenge to re-acquire NBN, but it was revealed that CityWest was held by Hong Kong company Hang Lung Properties, thereby violating foreign ownership laws. Following ownership changes, NBN Enterprises was sold to Washington H. Soul Pattinson in October 1989.[15][16]

NBN was one of many stations opposed to aggregation, and offered an alternative by opening up a second station which it would operate for a period of time before selling it. This proposal was however rejected, and aggregation occurred on 31 December 1991, with NBN acquiring Nine Network affiliation. Following aggregation, the station's coverage expanded to cover all of northern New South Wales, whilst concurrently programming extended to twenty-four hours in a day, in stereophonic sound. NBN Television's 1977 logo however was retained until late 1994 when it was updated to feature the Nine Networks 'nine dots' in a new logo similar to fellow affiliate WIN Television .

Throughout the 2000s, NBN was regarded as one of the leaders in digital broadcasting, not only being the first to produce a nightly regional news bulletin in full digital format, using a digital friendly news set, but also Australia's first fully digital outside broadcast van.[17]

In 2004, Washington H. Soul Pattinson began moves to transfer control of the station to its publicly listed subsidiary, Soul Pattinson Telecommunications, which became SP Telemedia as a result.[18][19]

On 30 January 2006, NBN adopted a new logo and on air graphics, in line with Nine's new logo. However, the news department did not update its graphics until 15 March. During April 2007, SP Telemedia announced that it would consider selling NBN Television, and had received at least two bids, one each from WIN Corporation and PBL Media.[20] On 9 May 2007, PBL Media's $250 million bid became final, winning the sale.[5] However, upon acquiring NBN, PBL did not fold it into the main Nine Network, but continued to operate it as a regional independent station until 2016. The purchase also secured permanent status of supplying Nine's content to the station's entire coverage area, sparing any future affiliation switches (particularly the 2016 Australian television shakeup involving Southern Cross Austereo[21] and WIN Corporation[22]).

Following Nine's relaunch of their high definition simulcast as "Nine HD" on 17 March 2008,[23] NBN launched their own HD simulcast in mid-2008 called "NBN HD".

On 9 August 2009, NBN began transmission of the new digital channel GO! (now 9Go!) on channel 88.

In 2010, it was announced that two of NBN's inner Newcastle retransmitter sites in Charlestown and Cooks Hill were selected to carry 3D broadcasts of the 2010 State of Origin series.

On 26 September 2010, NBN began transmission of the HD digital channel GEM (now 9Gem) on channel 80.

In January 2012, NBN celebrated 50 years of broadcasting across Northern NSW and the Gold Coast.[24] Coincidentally, it also marked 20 years since the station took Nine's signal across all of Northern NSW.

On 26 March 2012, NBN began transmission of Nine's metropolitan informercial channel Extra on channel 84.

On 27 January 2014, along with the Nine Network, NBN switched from the Supertext logo to Nine's Closed Captioning logo.

After Nine revived 9HD and launched new lifestyle channel 9Life on 26 November 2015, NBN made no announcements of its intent to follow Nine's move in regional areas, instead continuing to broadcast 9Gem's HD feed on channel 80. NBN released a statement on its website days before the 9HD relaunch, saying that efforts are made to upgrade its stations across the region. On 10 February 2016, Nine Entertainment Co announced that NBN would receive both 9HD and 9Life in "coming months",[25] with further confirmation on 16 February that they would launch on 1 March 2016.[26] As a result, their channel listing was reshuffled to match to Nine's metropolitan listing with 9Gem on channel 82, 9Go! on channel 83, 9Life on channel 84 and Extra on channel 85.

On 9 February 2016, it was announced that Kylie Blucher, managing director of QTQ Brisbane, would be appointed managing director of NBN while retaining her position at QTQ, stating that she would "be splitting [her] time between Brisbane and Newcastle".[27][28]

Alongside the launch of 9HD and 9Life on 1 March 2016, NBN's unique branding began to be phased out in favour of Nine's mainstream branding already in place on its metropolitan stations and its Darwin station. The mainstream logos for Nine and 9HD were used with "NBN" written alongside in a smaller font. On 1 July 2016, coinciding with the media shakeup of WIN and Southern Cross, NBN's unique branding was completely phased out. As a result, NBN was folded into the Nine Network. But for the time being NBN News remains under its unique name and the small "NBN" on the Nine watermark is still used in areas where NBN's signal overlaps with TCN Sydney and QTQ Brisbane to differentiate between the stations. However, NBN continued to cover the Nine News logo on all network national news bulletins until July 2018. Until 2020, the NBN News coverup was used on the 4pm news in Sydney, however that is no longer the case. The coverup is still used on the 4pm news in Queensland on the Gold Coast feed.

In October 2016, Nine Entertainment Co lodged a development application with Newcastle City Council about plans to turn the current NBN studios into medium density housing.[29] As a result of this, the network is planning on moving NBN somewhere in the Newcastle CBD. During this time, it was unclear whether NBN News would be retained under its current name following the move to the new workspace. Studio presentation was also uncertain once the transfer occurs.

In March 2018, Nine's regional affiliate Southern Cross Austereo began advertising sales for NBN.[30] As a result, the advertising department moved from NBN's offices to SCA's radio offices.

In June 2018, Nine Entertainment moved NBN's playout facilities to the networks main playout centre in Frenchs Forest, Sydney as part of Nine's plans to integrate NBN into the network.

In October 2020, it was announced that after almost 60 years broadcasting from the Mosbri Crescent studios, the Nine Network will be moving NBN to new state of the art facilities located at 28 Honeysuckle Drive, Newcastle. The move will be completed in June 2021. [31] This will allow NBN to update its ageing technology and grow the business. It was also announced that upon completion of the move, the name 'NBN News' will be retained for the 6pm bulletin, thus for now resting any speculation that the bulletin will be rebadged as Nine News as well as speculation that studio presentation of the news would be relocated to the network's new North Sydney Studios.