WIN Television has reportedly made staff redundancies in regional Victoria and South Australia as production facilities are being outsourced.
Ballarat newspaper The Courier reports that news director Steve Marshall has been made redundant after 11 years at the network.
Other staff in regional Victoria and South Australia have been let go as news and commercial production is contracted out to Mildura-based company Admedia.
Some staff have been offered jobs with the new contractor.
WIN in Ballarat produces six local news bulletins every weeknight — covering each of the regions Mildura/Sunraysia, Bendigo, Ballarat, Goulburn Valley (Shepparton), Upper Murray (Albury) and Gippsland.
The redundancies and outsourcing comes after WIN shifted production of its Canberra edition of WIN News to Wollongong and the recent axing of the Perth-based afternoon edition of Nine News.
WIN News in regional South Australia was axed earlier this year.
Meanwhile it is reported that Nine Entertainment Co is intending to go through with the purchase of STW Nine Perth, currently owned by WIN. The purchase follows the recent deal to buy NWS Nine Adelaide from WIN.
STW is believed to have been offered to Nine for around $180 million to $200 million. WIN owner Bruce Gordon paid $163 million for the station in 2007.
The deal to purchase STW was made last month but was put on hold pending the government lifting the 75% audience reach restrictions, but it now appears that adding Perth to the network will put Nine Entertainment Co just under the threshold at 74%.
Purchasing the Adelaide and Perth stations now gives Nine Entertainment Co a direct presence in the five major metropolitan markets, equaling the metropolitan audience reach of rivals Seven and Ten. Nine Entertainment Co also owns NTD8 Darwin and NBN Northern NSW.
WIN is under pressure to rein in costs as the regional broadcaster seeks to pay the additional fees to stay affiliated to the Nine Network. Under the new agreement WIN is liable to pay Nine around 39% of advertising revenue in return for the supply of Nine Network programming.
The previous affiliation agreement set the fee at 33%.
Source: The Courier, ABC, Admedia, Perth Now
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What is happening in country areas to commercial tv, as you have documented over time, is quite disturbing. Such is the reality of commercial enterprise. All the more the reason to fund our ABC well so it can provide reporting of local news to the country.