This article is divided into the following sections:

Programming History

Programming

WIN Television Griffith operates two commercial services - a WIN broadcast to Griffith as MTN9 (commenced broadcasting 15th of December, 1965) and to Hay as MTN57 (formerly MTN6), and a Prime retransmission as AMN31 in Griffith and AMN63 in Hay. A limited digital service began operating from December 2003 on VHF channel 6, multi-channelling WIN and Prime on the one frequency (UHF 30 is reserved for if and when Prime digital is broadcast separately).

History

After originally being a part of the Television/Midstate 6-8-9 group with CBN8 Orange and CWN6 Dubbo (later the Prime Network), MTN broke away from the now Seven-aligned network when Griffith was excluded from Southern NSW aggregation in 1989, to take an affiliation with the Nine Network, via WIN Television. Programming during this period was generally as for WIN Southern NSW, with the exception of the local MTN News, and the Seven Network's Australian Football League telecasts on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, taking precedence over Nine's rugby league coverage when the two clashed on Sunday.

MTN's station ID after affiliating with Nine/WIN consisted of a local image with a blue-and-white MTN Television logo (in the Nine/WIN logo style), zoomed out into the current Nine ident. However, it was only given a limited run, generally into local programming, or where the output would deviate from WIN's. At other times, MTN left WIN's ident unedited.

In the mid 90's, station ownership rules were relaxed to allow solus broadcasters to run a second television service (now known as a 'section 38A' service), under the condition that there was to be no other opposing interest in the area. MTN applied for a supplementary licence in 1995, and were initially refused by the ABA. However, this was successfully challenged, and on October the 5th, 1997 a second service, carrying generally a feed from Canberra of Prime's CBN8 Orange programming, was launched under the callsign AMN (a derivation of Prime Victoria's AMV). Local ads are inserted, but no local news is produced or broadcast on the supplementary channel, as it would duplicate the existing MTN News on the original channel. This is replaced at 6.00pm by a popular Network Ten program - typically The Simpsons or Seinfeld - before rejoining Prime for the replay of Sydney's Seven News at 6.30pm. However, the Prime Local News promos (for Prime's Orange news bulletins) during the day are typically left unedited by WIN.

After nearly a decade of broadcasting what was essentially a WIN Television service to Griffith, WIN bought out MTN in 1998. Not much changed as a result of the takeover - MTN9 become known as WIN full-time, and its local news service was renamed to WIN News. The AMN relay of Prime from Canberra still operates, still showing a predominantly unedited feed (programming-wise) for the Central West. WIN Griffith still sometimes shows Network Ten programming; presently, aside from the Prime News replacement, some sporting events covered by Ten - such as the Saturday afternoon AFL match, and V8 Supercar coverage (some rounds as well as major events such as the Bathurst 1000) - appear on the Prime channel. When promotional slots for these Ten programs appear on "Prime Griffith", the promos are generally re-dubbed by the usual WIN announcer, but no channel names are generally mentioned.