are a network of
Network Ten affiliates in
Queensland ,
New South Wales , the
Australian Capital Territory ,
Victoria and
South Australia . The stations are owned by
Southern Cross Broadcasting .
Prior to 2002, the stations were known as "Ten
" (e.g. ''Ten Northern NSW''), and took generic Ten branding. At first, the new name wasn't used much, but when the Australian Broadcasting Authority instituted new regulations for local content, local programming and later on, some station graphics took on the Southern Cross Ten brand.
On Sunday 14 August 2005 , Southern Cross Ten launched its own logo, based upon the new Southern Cross Broadcasting and Southern Cross Tasmania logos, this time using blue and yellow, the same colours as Ten itself.
Southern Cross Ten stations (except in South Australia) air two minute local news bulletins throughout the day, and a weekly half-hour regional current affairs program, ''State Focus''. Both are produced at Southern Cross's production centre in Canberra .
The two minute news bulletins are usually shown throughout the afternoon and into the evening and are shown less frequently than Prime 's two minute bulletins.
The Canberra and North Queensland stations once had top-rating, long-running one hour news bulletins, due to their long presence with these areas since the early 1960s. However, both were axed at the end of 2001 due to cost-cutting.
Southern Cross Ten's forerunner, ''Capital Television'' began on the 2 June 1962 , broadcasting on channel 7 with callsign (standing for '''''C'''apital '''T'''elevision '''C'''anberra'').
Relays in Goulburn and Cooma were started soon after, both on Channel 10.
Current Seven Network chairman Kerry Stokes owned the station until 1987, when he sold it to Charles Curran . Curran changed the station's name to ''Capital Television'' in 1988, and used a version of Network Ten's logo of the time, and prepared for aggregation.
Southern NSW and the ACT were the first licence area that was aggregated, and this took place in two stages during 1989. The first stage saw Capital begin transmission in Wollongong and South Coast , and the second stage, which was caused by technical programs in the Orange and Wagga areas, took place later in the year.
Capital took on an original logo in 1990, and used edited versions of Network Ten identification of the time. This lasted until 1994, when Southern Cross purchased the station and renamed it Ten Capital. The logo was changed to a version of Ten's, with the word Capital along side it. However, this logo was rarely used on air, with the standard Ten logo being used instead.
Capital originally aired their own local news bulletin, Ten Capital News , across the whole of their licence area after aggregation, but due to low ratings, the bulletin was later scaled back to just the Canberra region, being replaced by Ten Sydney's news elsewhere. On Thursday 22 November 2001 , after nearly 40 years serving Canberra , Southern Cross finally axed the Canberra station's long-running news bulletin and replaced it with Ten Sydney's bulletin. This was one of the triggers for the ABA investigation into local news.
In 2002, the station was renamed Southern Cross Ten. In 2004, local news resurfaced on the station, in the form of two-minute bulletins throughout the day.
Southern Cross Ten's forerunner in Northern NSW, , began life as two different stations:
NRN-11 Coffs Harbour had merged with ECN-8 Taree, but later demerged. Around 1975, RTN-8 and NRN-11 merged to form ''Northern Rivers Television'' (). It served the Mid North Coast and Far North Coast areas of Northern NSW. At one stage after the merger, the station was known as ''Great Eastlands Television'', but they soon reverted back to the NRTV brand.
On the 31 December 1991 , Northern NSW became the third area to be aggregated, and NRTV, via links to Network Ten (it was part of Northern Star Holdings , owned by Westfield chairman Frank Lowy ), became its affiliate in Northern NSW. At one stage, NRTV was the subject of a bid from WIN Television ; nothing came of it, but if WIN had gone through with the bid, it would have made NRTV the Nine Network 's affiliate and left an unhappy NBN as Network Ten's affiliate instead.
NRTV was later sold to Telecasters Australia , who also owned the Queensland affiliate of Network Ten . In 1994, the station was renamed ''Ten Northern NSW'', and its station identification was changed to that of Network Ten's. In 1994-1995, the station stopped producing local news for the North Coast . They had previously produced a licence-wide bulletin, but that too was axed due to poor ratings.
In 2001, Telecasters Australia was bought out by Southern Cross, and in 2002, Ten Northern NSW became ''Southern Cross Ten''. In 2005, the station celebrated 40 years of operation; station IDs created to mark the event used the Northern Rivers Television name in the ID, not the Southern Cross Ten name.
This is the original Southern Cross television region. Its network here was originally known as the ''Victorian Broadcasting Network'', which was previously the ''TV-8'' network. This was made up a number of transmitters, the main licences being:
In 1980, GLV-10 became . In 1982, the network was branded ''TV8'', later ''Southern Cross TV8'', and finally the ''Southern Cross Network'' in 1989. In that time, they lost STV-8 Mildura after Alan Bond traded it for STW-9 Perth. It was then sold to ENT Limited , which then became part of VIC TV (later WIN TV Victoria).
By the mid 1980s, translators in Toora and Foster (channel 6), Orbost (channel 7), Lakes Entrance (channel 11) and Cann River (channel 9) were put in service.
In 1992, Victoria was aggregated, and Southern Cross became the regional Ten affiliate. In 1993, the network's name was changed to , and the logo became a version of Ten's, with "SCN" where "Ten" is. Six months later, the network changed its name and logo again, becoming ''Ten Victoria'', using generic Network Ten identification. Around this time, its local news service was axed, replaced with Ten Melbourne 's news bulletins.
In 2002, the name was changed to ''Southern Cross Ten'', in line with Southern Cross's other Ten affiliates.
Southern Cross Ten in Queensland began life as ''North Queensland Television''. The original stations were:
In 1982, they joined forces to become ''North Queensland Television'' (). Their slogan was ''The Place to Be'', a slogan used by the station for over a decade up until 1993.
When Aggregation was announced, NQTV was planning to be the Nine Network affiliate when regional Queensland was aggregated in late 1990. NQTV had a write-in competition for their name and logo. The name was chosen and because of the affiliation with the Nine Network, the Nine dots were put on the logo (similar to WIN and NBN 's logos). Viewers didn't like the logo, so they changed the logo to one sent in from the competition. The station ran with a Nine Network-based identification package in the year leading up to aggregation.
However, the station faced a crisis in the days leading up to aggregation: WIN Television bought the Toowoomba and Rockhampton -based Star Television , and switched the affiliation from Ten to Nine, in line with WIN's NSW station. This meant that QTV had to change its logo and affiliation in a hurry. QTV picked up the vacant Ten affiliation, and used the logo chosen from the competition. The station originally broadcast a licence-wide one hour bulletin when Queensland was aggregated, but this was soon axed outside North Queensland.
The station's owners, Telecasters North Queensland (later Telecasters Australia ), joined the Ten Group Consortium in 1992-1993. This led to a change from QTV to ''Ten Queensland'', and they began to use generic Ten branding.
In 2001, Telecasters was purchased by Southern Cross. Also in 2001, the same day Ten Capital axed its local news, Ten's North Queensland local news was axed, replaced with Ten's Brisbane news. This was also one of the many triggers which led to the local news inquiry by the ABA.
In 2002, like the other Southern Cross-owned Ten affiliates, it too became Southern Cross Ten.
The area around the Spencer Gulf and Broken Hill, New South Wales received a new television station in late 2003, licensed by the ABA as a supplementary service to the existing service provided by Southern Cross-owned Central GTS/BKN . It is a straight relay of Ten Adelaide , with local ads. It is branded as ''Southern Cross Ten''.
It is planned that Regional Western Australia will receive Southern Cross Ten as its third commercial channel in 2008-09, competing against long time leader Golden West Network and WIN Television. WIN already has plans underway to become a full Nine Network affiliate in Western Australia after announcing that Ten News would make way for a local edition of WIN News and National Nine News Perth.
