It seems to be a case of another day, another shot by regional WIN Television in their souring relationship with the Nine Network.
Negotiations between Nine and WIN, over the issue of affiliation fees, have been going on and off for most of the year, and has seen WIN act defiantly against Nine’s program line-up including dropping a number of Nine’s daytime and news programs from its schedule as well as the late-night Quizmania (now The Mint) – and now the latest blow to Nine comes as WIN chums up with the Seven Network to feed programs to its South Australian regional channels.
WIN and Seven have today announced their new-formed friendship which will see South Australian regional channels SES8 Mount Gambier and RTS5A Riverland change from a Nine-fed line-up, to a Seven Network schedule. This will mean that local viewers will now lose access to Nine’s programs as the only other commercial TV outlet in the area is also owned by the WIN group and carries a program feed from Network Ten.
WIN’s pairing up with Seven, while representing only a relatively small number of viewers, represents a significant change for the regional broadcaster which in the past has had a tight relationship with Nine, with some dealings with Ten. It will be with some interest to see how Nine reacts to this latest development – and how local viewers react to losing their McLeod’s Daughters in favour of City Homicide, and losing Days Of Our Lives to repeats of All Saints.
