Television station in Northern New South Wales & Gold Coast
NEN
is an Australian
television station
licensed to, and serving northern
New South Wales
.
History
[
edit
]
NEN9
Tamworth
/Upper
Namoi
commenced transmissions on 10 April 1965, with a relay in
Armidale
(NEN1, later NEN10) on 15 July 1966. ECN8
Taree
/
Manning River
began on 27 May 1966.
By the mid 80's, prior to aggregation, the station was broadcasting to Tamworth on VHF 10, VHF9 from Mt Dowe (Kaputar) and VHF8 from Middle Brother Mountain. They had translators at Armidale VHF10, Ashford VHF10, Glenn Innes VHF3, Gloucester VHF11, Inverell VHF10, Quirindi VHF10, Tamworth VHF0, Walcha VHF1, Laurieton UHF47, Lightning Ridge UHF69.
[1]
During 1968?69, ECN8 who at the time were facing financial difficulties approached
NBN3 Newcastle
to take the station over but the proposal was rejected by the
Australian Broadcasting Control Board
. An approach was also made to
NRN11 Coffs Harbour
but an agreement could not be reached. Finally, ECN approached NEN with an agreement for ECN to carry a relay broadcast of NEN's programming from the end of March 1969. In November 1971, ECN merged with NEN, but continued to use the callsign ECN into the mid 1980s.
During the 1970s and early 1980s NEN9 was a member of the
Great Eastland Television
partnership with
NRN11 Coffs Harbour
and
DDQ/SDQ
Toowoomba
,
Queensland
, sharing programming and advertising. From 1984 until 1989 the station branded itself 9?8 Television, referencing the channel numbers of both their Tamworth and Taree broadcasts.
Prime Television purchased the station in 1989, rebranding the station
Prime Television
and aligning it with the
Seven Network
, similarly to
CBN
in southern New South Wales, whilst changing ECN's call sign to NEN. At the commencement of Northern NSW market
Aggregation
on 31 December 1991, Prime Television became the Northern NSW affiliate of the
Seven Network
, in competition with
NRTV
and
NBN
.
Seven News
[
edit
]
NEN produces and broadcasts two 30-minute
Seven News
bulletins for the North West and North Coast regional markets, both broadcast each weeknight at 6pm from Seven's
Canberra
headquarters and is co-presented by Madelaine Collignon and Nick Hose, with the North Coast edition broadcast live. Kirstie Fitzpatrick is the bulletin's weather presenter for both editions.
In the Newcastle and Central Coast regional markets, short two-minute updates are presented by Pip Waller, with weather forecasts from
Daniel Gibson
. Both markets take
Sydney's
Seven News
bulletin for the 6pm
primetime
news service.
Throughout the station's history, local news under various names for both regions were produced and broadcast from studios on Goonoo Goonoo Road in
Tamworth
. In the 2000s Seven began closing most of its regional studios, citing upgrade costs. Tamworth, however, was not cut and was upgraded to digital equipment.
In January 2012, Seven announced local production for both
Seven News
bulletins would be moved to Seven's Canberra headquarters in April 2012.
[2]
The plan was scrapped a month later.
[3]
However, in a report by
ABC News
on 22 January 2015, Seven announced it would be closing its Tamworth studios and transferring production to Canberra, and thus the last bulletin was produced in April 2015. The studios were converted to a car dealership sometime later, however, the last local news presenter, Fiona Ferguson, moved to the newly-established newsroom in Tamworth as the News Director for the North Coast bulletin.
[4]
The transfer was completed on 27 April 2015.
Main transmitters
[
edit
]
Notes:
- HAAT
estimated from
http://www.itu.int/SRTM3/
using EHAAT.
- The
Manning River
station was an independent station with the callsign ECN from its 1966 sign-on until aggregation in 1991.
- Analogue
services ceased transmission as of 27 November 2012 as part of
national conversion to digital-only television
References
[
edit
]
See also
[
edit
]
|
---|
Television
| |
---|
Stations
| |
---|
Multichannels
| |
---|
Programs
| |
---|
Primetime
| | |
---|
Daytime
|
- The Chase Australia
(since 2015)
- The House of Wellness
(since 2017)
- Melbourne Weekender
(since 2006)
- Weekender
(since 2019)
|
---|
News
| |
---|
Sport
| |
---|
Upcoming
| |
---|
|
---|
Defunct
| |
---|
| Joint ventures
| |
---|
|
---|
Newspapers
| |
---|
Online
| |
---|
Former holdings
| |
---|
See also
| |
---|