GLV and BCV, better known collectively as Southern Cross Ten Victoria, are television stations in regional Victoria, Australia.

History

GLV-10 was the first regional television station to launch in the country, on December 9, 1961, originally covering the Gippsland and Latrobe Valley areas. It was also the first to use entirely Australian-made broadcasting equipment from Amalgamated Wireless Australasia. The original equipment consisted of a 10 kW and 2 kW transmitter (standby) which was based on the RCA product and adapted to PAL 230V 50 Hz bt AWA. The Melbourne pickup was a Rhode and Schwarz off air receiver with AWA return microwave links to the Studio. BCV-8 followed two weeks later on December 23, in Bendigo and central Victoria.

GLV pioneered the live, 'off-air' relay of television programs from stations in Melbourne, including GTV-9's In Melbourne Tonight. Since it had no video recording equipment, the station was forced to rely on picking up the original signal at the transmitter site to relay back to the studio. As the sole commercial television station in the area, GLV's program lineup included local programs such as news and children's programs, combined with programs selected from the capital city commercial networks - the Seven Network, Nine Network and, after 1964, Network Ten.

An affiliation was formed between the two stations, and STV-8 Mildura, in the 1970s. A common name, logo, and programming schedule followed in 1982, with the establishment of the TV-8 network between the three stations, changed to the Southern Cross Network seven years later.

In January, 1980, GLV-10 changed frequency from VHF channel 10 to 8 becoming GLV-8 to allow neighbouring Melbourne television station ATV-0 to move to the channel 10 frequency. ATV-0 couldn't move to channel 8 as this would have caused interference to Melbourne's GTV-9 so GLV had to move to 8 instead.

When aggregation in regional Victoria took place between 1992 and 1993, the Southern Cross Network expanded to Shepparton, Ballarat and Albury as an affiliate of Network Ten. By September, 1993 the network had changed its name and logo to SCN, and then again the next year to Ten Victoria. This latest change coincided with the axing of the station's local news service, replaced by ATV-10's Eyewitness News.v

In 2000, GLV-8 moved again to UHF channel 37, in order to allow another Melbourne, this time GTV-9 to commence digital television transmissions without interference. The two stations' playout and management operations were moved from Bendigo to Canberra in September, 2005.

Programming

News and Current Affairs

Local news was reintroduced to the station in 2004 in the form of three-minute updates at various times of the day, presented by Fiona Nelson (Bendigo, Ballarat, Albury and Gippsland)

A local current affairs program, State Focus, is shown at 8.30am on Sundays, presented by Judi Hogan from the network's Canberra-based studios.

Main Transmitters

The following transmitters use the GLV call sign:

Region served	City	Channels (Analog/ Digital)	First air date	ERP (Analog/ Digital)	HAAT (Analog/ Digital)1	Transmitter Coordinates	Transmitter Location
Goulburn Valley	Shepparton	46 (UHF) 42 (UHF)	January 1, 1992	1200 kW 300 kW	377 m 378 m		Mount Major, Victoria
Latrobe Valley	Traralgon	37 (UHF)2 39 (UHF)	December 9, 1961	1000 kW 400 kW	507 m 487 m		Mount Tassie
Upper Murray	Albury	39 (UHF) 8 (VHF)	January 1, 1992	1200 kW 60 kW	533 m 525 m		Mount Baranduda

The following transmitters use the BCV call sign:

Region served	City	Channels (Analog/ Digital)	First air date	ERP (Analog/ Digital)	HAAT (Analog/ Digital)1	Transmitter Coordinates	Transmitter Location
Ballarat	Ballarat	39 (UHF) 40 (UHF)	January 1, 1992	2000 kW 500 kW	663 m 713 m		Lookout Hill
Bendigo	Bendigo	8 (VHF)3 51 (UHF)	December 23, 1961	240 kW 1000 kW	444 m 496 m		Mount Alexander
Murray Valley	Swan Hill	10 (VHF)4 65 (UHF)	May 12, 1967	150 kW 375 kW	179 m 201 m		Goschen
Western Victoria		31 (UHF) 9A (VHF)	January 1, 1992	200 kW 15 kW	335 m 365 m	(analog) (digital)	Mount Dundas

Notes:

• 1. HAAT estimated from http://www.itu.int/SRTM3/ using EHAAT.
• 2. The Latrobe Valley station was on VHF channel 10 from its 1961 sign-on until 1980, moving to VHF channel 8 in order to accommodate ATV Melbourne's switch from VHF channel 0 to channel 10. It moved to its current channel in 2000 in order to accommodate digital television in Melbourne.
• 3. The Bendigo station also broadcasts on analog (UHF) channel 38 with 1200 kW ERP at 508 m HAAT.
• 4. Swan Hill translator initially broadcast on VHF channel 11 from sign-on in 1967 until early 1990s when it changed to VHF channel 10.

References

See also

• Regional television in Australia
• Southern Cross Ten