Thoughts on "aggregation" of regional television in Australia

Background info -- initially, regional areas in Australia only had two television channels broadcasting in their area: ABC, and their local commercial station (which would pick and choose programming from the three metropolitan TV networks 7, 9 and 10). Over the late '80s and early '90s the process of "aggregation" happened: television broadcast regions were combined in threes so that each region would have three regional commercial networks instead of one, each broadcasting over the entire enlarged area in competition with each other.

Naturally, what happened was that the regional networks ended up affiliating themselves with the metropolitan networks -- e.g. in regional Victoria, 7 affiliated with Prime Television, 9 affiliated with Vic TV (which later became part of WIN Television), and 10 affiliated with Southern Cross Television (later rebranded Ten Victoria, then Southern Cross Ten). So the regional channels essentially turned into clones of the metropolitan channels, only with a few locally-produced shows and different ads.

So, here's my thought: is there any way to have aggregation still happen, but prevent the regional networks from directly affiliating with the metropolitan networks? So each regional network would have to bid against its two competitors for programming content from all three metropolitan networks rather than just getting it automatically from only one? In other words, is it possible to keep Prime, WIN, NBN, Southern Cross and all the rest of them as actual separate networks with their own identities rather than turning them into rebranded extensions of 7, 9 and 10?
 
Short answer no.

They don't have the recourses and it makes sense for them to work with the Major networks.
 
If you want regional television to be aggregated whilst not directly affiliating with regional television systems of the 3 TV networks*, one would have to go back to when TV was first introduced to Australia. On the VHF dial, one in the Broadcasting Control Board could have reserved at least 1 channel per market for the ABC and 3~4 for metro network commercial television, and, say, 1~3 for independent commercial television (number depends on the size of the market).

*This is an important distinction that needs to be mentioned - your use of "network" intrigued me. That's because most of what you call networks I'd call "television systems", as in Canada. A television system, according to Wiki, is:
is a Canadian term for a group of television stations which share common ownership, branding, and programming, but are not considered a full television network.

In current practice, a television system may be either a small group of stations with common branding, such as Citytv, CTV Two, or Omni, or a regional group of stations within a larger network, such as CTV Atlantic, CTV Northern Ontario, or CBC North, which are legally licensed as multiple stations but effectively act as a single station for programming, branding, and advertising sales purposes. The former type of system has largely, although not entirely, replaced independent stations in the Canadian broadcast landscape.

Systems are differentiated from networks primarily by their less extensive service area — while a network will serve most Canadian broadcast markets in some form, a system will typically serve only a few markets. As well, a system may or may not offer some classes of programming, such as a national newscast, which are typically provided by a network.

The distinction between a system and a network is often not entirely clear, as the former term has no set legal definition, and its usage is largely restricted to the broadcasting enthusiast community. Accordingly, it is common for operators of such entities, as well as audiences, to refer to their operations as "networks" nonetheless.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_system

Though the terminology is Canadian, "networks" of this type do exist in the US and I'm assuming this is what you mean by "networks" in Australia - both to refer to the regional television systems (operated by companies such as WIN and Southern Cross) and the metropolitan networks serving Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane, and Adelaide (that is, 7, 9, and 10). In this case, for metro network commercial television I'm using a narrow definition similar to the US and Canada where the metro stations themselves own channels in regional areas (which may or may not be subject to a station cap) and also have affiliates (who may be single stations or are regional groupings of stations, i.e. television systems) who air a mix of metro network programming and local programming. This is similar to the Australian situation, except that it's now possible for a station in Sydney or Brisbane to expand beyond being limited to state capitals. Independent commercial television, in this case, would fall between the North American and Japanese definitions of an independent TV station.

That's one way. Another option, probably more closer to the OP, is to allocate only 2 channels for the regional areas - 1 ABC, 1 commercial - and 4 channels for the metro areas - 1 ABC, plus 7, 9, and 10. Only if you make the regional areas 2-station markets would that be closer to the OP (and not areas like the NT).

Me, I'd favour somewhere between those two options, with the retention of independent commercial TV stations and expand the other commercial TV channels so we'd have three-station markets (1 ABC and 2 commercial) for regional areas and 4 for the metro areas. On the one hand, the OP would be satisfied; on the other hand, it's flexible enough so should a metro station decides to break out of a state capital and expand into regional areas, it would be free to do so (reducing the other station to broadcasting programming from 2 of the 3 metro commercial networks).

Of course, I'm being a little flexible here - there's nothing here which would prevent the ABC from launching an ABC-2 around the 1960s~1980s as an analogue to BBC2 (making the original ABC assignments ABC-1 instead), or Australian states launching educational television stations, or community stations à la the OTL Channel 31 stations, or Imparja going national with its mix of indigenous programming and programming from the metro networks, or a combo of all four.

The takeaway message? As the others have said, at first glance Australian TV markets are too small, so (as it turned out) it was easier for regional TV systems to affiliate with at least one metro network, so as to benefit from economies of scale. However, if one is creative enough, those small TV markets could be used to one's advantage if one was a little smart in formulating TV policy.
 
This is an important distinction that needs to be mentioned - your use of "network" intrigued me. That's because most of what you call networks I'd call "television systems", as in Canada.
Well, yes, but they call themselves networks.
 
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