NBN is an Australian television station based in Newcastle, Australia. The station was inaugurated on 4 March 1962 as the first regional commercial television station in New South Wales, and has since expanded to 39 transmitters throughout Northern New South Wales including Lismore, Tweed Heads, Tamworth, Coffs Harbour, Newcastle and the Central Coast as well as the Gold Coast, Queensland. It is owned and operated by the Nine Network, with regional sales and newsroom located at 28 Honeysuckle Drive.
The station's call sign, NBN, is an acronym for Newcastle Broadcasting New South Wales. However, following the PBL acquisition, NBN at the time continued to operate as an independent regional affiliate of the main network under the name NBN Television. On 1 July 2016, when Nine switched regional affiliations outside Northern NSW and the Gold Coast, NBN was finally folded into the Nine Network adopting the primary logo with the NBN name retired on air.
In January 2026, Nine Entertainment announced its intention to sell NBN to the WIN Corporation.
History
Origins
thumb|upright=1.0|[[TV Week reporting NBN as the first regional station in New South Wales in 1962]]
NBN's original owner, the Newcastle Broadcasting and Television Corporation (NBTC) was founded in May 1958 to begin preparations for the upcoming television licence allocations. The main shareholders in NBTC were United Broadcasting Company (owned by the Lamb family, owners of radio station 2KO), Airsales Broadcasting Company (owners of local radio station 2HD), and the Newcastle Morning Herald & Miners Advocate (to be bought out by John Fairfax & Sons). In accordance with the Australian Broadcasting Control Board regulations, at least 50% of the company had to be locally owned. Approximately 2,000 people bought shares.
The Australian Broadcasting Control Board awarded the commercial television licence for the Newcastle and Hunter Valley area to the NBTC on 1 August 1961. NBN-3 would transmit on VHF channel 3, from a transmitter atop Mount Sugarloaf near Newcastle. Council approval for the transmitter was issued on 17 July that year.
In the lead-up to the opening night, the station promised at least two movies a week, as well as men's interest programs each Saturday afternoon between 3 pm and 4 pm – a commitment successfully met, along with female-targeted programming in the early afternoon, and children's programming from 4:30 to 6:30 pm weekdays and mature programming thirty minutes before closedown each night. NBN Television broadcast fifty-six hours in its first week of transmission, setting the Australian television record for the most time spent on air in a week for a new television station. Also during the same year more extensions were added to the studios (which included a new car park), which were officially opened on 17 November 1978.
On 22 November 1979, the Newcastle Broadcasting and Television Corporation officially became NBN Limited, after the station itself rebranded from Channel 3 to NBN Television around 1977. By the late 1970s, NBN was producing 20 hours a week of local and networked programming from its studios, which in turn led the station to purchase a Bell Jet Ranger helicopter for news coverage purposes.
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|+ NBN Limited (1981) Michael Wansey resigned from the board at the end of the year as a result. In 1984, plans for a second independent station in Newcastle had failed. During that time, NBN and ABC Newcastle (call sign ABHN-5A) were asked to leave the VHF band to accommodate FM radio. At the time, NBN's audio carrier frequency could be listened to with a standard FM radio.
It was planned for NBN to transmit on UHF channel 51, and the ABC on UHF channel 48, however this did not eventuate. A proposal to launch a radiated subscription television service with community broadcasting during the daytime hours had also failed that year.
thumb|NBN's former headquarters on Mosbri Crescent in [[Newcastle, New South Wales|Newcastle. As of 26 May 2007, administration and the studio are to the right and left respectively.]]
In the late 1980s, NBN's Perth-based owner, Parry Corporation, spun off NBN Limited into a new company, NBN Enterprises, and took a 40 per cent stake in the new company, with Security Pacific Capital Corporation buying 60 per cent, sold their stake soon after, holding onto Papua New Guinea television station NTN, which NBN had helped to set up. Fulcrum Media's move to later purchase the station was a source for confusion, as it was revealed that many companies, including the NSW State Superannuation Board and Westpac, held substantial stakes in Fulcrum Media. Parry Corporation's new owner CityWest issued a court challenge to re-acquire NBN, but it was revealed that CityWest was held by Hong Kong company Hang Lung Properties, thereby violating foreign ownership laws. Following ownership changes, NBN Enterprises was sold to Washington H Soul Pattinson in October 1989.
NBN was one of many stations opposed to aggregation, and offered an alternative by opening up a second station which it would operate for a period of time before selling it. This proposal was however rejected, and aggregation occurred on 31 December 1991, with NBN acquiring Nine Network affiliation. Following aggregation, the station's coverage expanded to cover all of northern New South Wales, whilst concurrently programming extended to twenty-four hours in a day, in stereophonic sound. NBN Television's 1977 logo however was retained until late 1994 when it was updated to feature the Nine Networks 'nine dots' in a new logo similar to fellow affiliate WIN Television.
2000s
Throughout the 2000s, NBN was regarded as one of the leaders in digital broadcasting, not only being the first to produce a nightly regional news bulletin in full digital format, using a digital friendly news set, but also Australia's first fully digital outside broadcast van.
In 2004, Washington H Soul Pattinson began moves to transfer control of the station to its publicly listed subsidiary, Soul Pattinson Telecommunications, which became SP Telemedia as a result.
On 30 January 2006, NBN adopted a new logo and on air graphics, in line with Nine's new logo. However, the news department did not update its graphics until 15 March. During April 2007, SP Telemedia announced that it would consider selling NBN Television, and had received at least two bids, one each from WIN Corporation and PBL Media. On 9 May 2007, PBL Media's $250 million bid became final, winning the sale. and WIN Corporation). The affiliation switch was reversed in July 2021.
Following Nine's relaunch of their high definition simulcast as "Nine HD" on 17 March 2008, NBN launched their own HD simulcast in mid-2008 called "NBN HD".
On 9 August 2009, NBN began transmission of the new digital channel GO! (now 9Go!) on channel 88.
2010s
In 2010, it was announced that two of NBN's inner Newcastle retransmitter sites in Charlestown and Cooks Hill were selected to carry 3D broadcasts of the 2010 State of Origin series. On 26 September 2010, NBN began transmission of the HD digital channel GEM (now 9Gem) on channel 80.
In January 2012, NBN celebrated 50 years of broadcasting across Northern NSW and the Gold Coast. Coincidentally, it also marked 20 years since the station took Nine's signal across all of Northern NSW. On 26 March 2012, NBN began transmission of Nine's metropolitan informercial channel Extra on channel 84.
On 27 January 2014, along with the Nine Network, NBN switched from the Supertext logo to Nine's Closed Captioning logo.
After Nine revived 9HD and launched new lifestyle channel 9Life on 26 November 2015, NBN made no announcements of its intent to follow Nine's move in regional areas, instead continuing to broadcast 9Gem's HD feed on channel 80. NBN released a statement on its website days before the 9HD relaunch, saying that efforts are made to upgrade its stations across the region. On 10 February 2016, Nine Entertainment announced that NBN would receive both 9HD and 9Life in "coming months", with further confirmation on 16 February that they would launch on 1 March 2016. As a result, their channel listing was reshuffled to match to Nine's metropolitan listing with 9Gem on channel 82, 9Go! on channel 83, 9Life on channel 84 and Extra on channel 85.
On 9 February 2016, it was announced that Kylie Blucher, managing director of QTQ Brisbane, would be appointed managing director of NBN while retaining her position at QTQ, stating that she would "be splitting [her] time between Brisbane and Newcastle".
Alongside the launch of 9HD and 9Life on 1 March 2016, NBN's unique branding began to be phased out in favour of Nine's mainstream branding already in place on its metropolitan stations and its Darwin station. The mainstream logos for Nine and 9HD were used with "NBN" written alongside in a smaller font. On 1 July 2016, coinciding with the media shakeup of WIN and Southern Cross, NBN's unique branding was completely phased out. As a result, NBN was folded into the Nine Network. But for the time being NBN News remains under its unique name and the small "NBN" on the Nine watermark is still used in areas where NBN's signal overlaps with TCN Sydney and QTQ Brisbane to differentiate between the stations. However, NBN continued to cover the Nine News logo on all network national news bulletins until July 2018. Until 2020, the NBN News coverup was used on the 4 pm news in Sydney, however that is no longer the case. The coverup is still used on the 4 pm news in Queensland on the Gold Coast feed.
In October 2016, Nine Entertainment lodged a development application with Newcastle City Council about plans to turn the current NBN studios into medium density housing. As a result of this, the network is planning on moving NBN somewhere in the Newcastle CBD. During this time, it was unclear whether NBN News would be retained under its current name following the move to the new workspace. Studio presentation was also uncertain once the transfer occurs.
In March 2018, Nine's regional affiliate Southern Cross Austereo began advertising sales for NBN. As a result, the advertising department moved from NBN's offices to SCA's radio offices.
In June 2018, Nine Entertainment moved NBN's playout facilities to the networks main playout centre in Frenchs Forest, Sydney as part of Nine's plans to integrate NBN into the network.
2020s
In November 2021, after almost 60 years broadcasting from the Mosbri Crescent studios, NBN moved to new state of the art facilities located at 28 Honeysuckle Drive, Newcastle. This will allow NBN to update its ageing technology and grow the business. It was also announced that upon completion of the move, the name NBN News will be retained for the 6 pm bulletin, thus for now resting any speculation that the bulletin will be rebadged as Nine News as well as speculation that studio presentation of the news would be relocated to the network's new North Sydney Studios. The move was originally meant to be completed in June 2021, but following the hacking situation that occurred at Nine's North Sydney studios in March, and statewide COVID-19 lockdowns across New South Wales, the planned move was pushed back to November.
On 30 November 2020, Jenny Webber, head of commercial production for both Nine Queensland (QTQ) and Nine Northern NSW would be appointed into the new role of General Manager for NBN overseeing the stations commercial department Nine Digital Production, the stations day-to-day operations, as well as oversee local digital advertising agent Nine Digital Direct. Kylie Blucher would retain her role as managing director of both QTQ and NBN.
On 7 November 2021, the station transmitted its local programming from the Mosbri Crescent studios for the final time, preceded by 30-minute tribute special Goodbye Mosbri, a look back of 59 years of news bulletins, telethons and top rating local programs as well as the history of NBN Television. The station completed its move to Honeysuckle the following day.
In March 2022, NBN celebrated 60 years of broadcasting across Northern NSW and the Gold Coast. Coincidentally, it also marked 30 years since the station took Nine's signal across all of Northern NSW.
Nine Entertainment in January 2026, announced its intention to sell NBN to the WIN Corporation, thus forming part of the WIN Network. combined with news reports from Nine News; with local stories in all of its sub-markets.
In mid 2006, Natasha Beyersdorf took over as the network's main female newsreader after Melinda Smith stepped down from the role. Paul Lobb took over as the network's main male newsreader and one of the network's local identities after Ray Dinneen retired on 17 December 2010.
In December 2014, Mike Rabbitt retired from reading sport on NBN News after nearly 30 years with the station. Mitchell Hughes was appointed his replacement.
Following the appointment of Kylie Blucher as the station's managing director, NBN News opener and graphics were relaunched, aligning with Nine's metropolitan and Darwin stations, yet retaining the well-known theme music composed by Laurence Schuberth. For the first time, the title cards used on Nine News were adapted as part of the refresh. Although a "lite" version of the graphics was introduced in February 2014, it did not become identical with Nine News until April 2016. Following the relaunch of Nine News graphics on 16 October of that year, NBN News refreshed its presentation by phases. The opener and title cards were first updated, followed by its weather graphics in February 2017 (when it began providing weather for then-Nine's affiliate CTC until 2021). A new set based on the previous Nine News sets was introduced on 7 August. The rest of the graphics were soon updated to the then-current Nine News look on 15 October 2018. On 19 January 2020, NBN News was updated to reflect the current Nine News graphics updated on the same day.
In December 2020, Paul Lobb and Natasha Beyersdorf marked 10 years as weeknight news presenters on the network. Coincidentally, it marked 10 years since Paul Lobb replaced Ray Dinneen as main male news presenter and one of the network's local identities back in 2010.
In August 2021, as part of Jenny Webber's appointment to NBN's day-to-day operations, major changes were imposed on NBN News: the station's Head of News Blake Doyle and Chief of Staff Andy Lobb were made redundant, taking with them a combined 40 years experience in local television production, with former Nine Perth reporter Darius Winterfield and former Nine Adelaide reporter Olivia Grace Curran to replace them as head of news and chief of staff, respectively. 20 positions were affected and 5 of its staff were redeployed to Nine's QTQ studios in Brisbane, where NBN News will begin master control operations from November. It was also confirmed that the new studio in Honeysuckle Drive will be automated with a state-of-the-art set similar to the current Nine News set in North Sydney, with construction that began from May 2021. It is said that there will be closer ties with Nine News including more opportunities for camera operators, reporters and journalists.
Programming
Until midway through the 2000s, NBN had always produced some local programming, and had set a record for most local programming and transmission hours in its first week of operation. It was also a member of Australian Television Facilities, and had a hand in the production of drama series Silent Number. However, due to NBN's affiliation with the Nine Network from 1991 onwards, these telethons were no longer viable with the last occurring in 2002.
NBN premiered Today Extra in 1989. The lifestyle program was broadcast three days per week as part of NBN's day-time line-up. The former Hunter Pirates NBL basketball team (and their predecessor, the Newcastle Falcons) as well as the Newcastle United Jets soccer team (and their predecessor, the Newcastle Breakers), have also both received sponsorship from Nine Northern NSW.
Logos
The original NBN logo, featuring the numeral three inside a ring was replaced by several others over the years. The three was used due to the station's frequency allocation, being transmitted on VHF channel 3 from a transmitter atop Mount Sugarloaf near Newcastle. However, in 1994, NBN added nine dots into a new logo designed similarly to the Nine Network's, and also began using Nine's on-air promotion, with the NBN logo replacing Nine's. In 1997, the dots were changed to spheres.
In April 2012, NBN Television's identity changed, applying the logo in different colours such as red, green, purple and more. It is also reminiscent of the 2002 ident package.
Since July 2016, the NBN logo has only been used as a digital on-screen graphic and for use for NBN News and station identification with the remaining identity using Nine Network branding.