WOW (TV station)

WOW is an Australian television station licensed to WIN Television, serving regional and remote Western Australia. The station officially commenced transmissions on 26 March 1999 as the second commercial regional broadcaster in Western Australia, alongside former monopoly, Golden West Network (GWN7).

History

Prior to WIN Television's expansion into Western Australia, the Golden West Network was the sole commercial network operating in regional areas, and carried programming from all three privately owned networks-- Seven, Nine and Ten. On 26 March 1999, WIN Western Australia officially commenced transmissions as a dual affiliate of Nine and Ten. This in turn left GWN to become a sole Seven affiliate.

WIN has struggled for ratings success in remote Western Australia, in part due to GWN/GWN7's 30-year run as the sole commercial television outlet in the region. WIN WA has run second to GWN7 in every ratings survey to date. The second ratings survey in 2005 placed WIN WA with only a 38.3% commercial audience share in prime time, compared to GWN7 with 61.7%.

WIN Television

WIN Television is an Australian television network owned by the WIN Corporation that is based in Wollongong, New South Wales. WIN commenced transmissions on 18 March 1962 as a single Wollongong-only station, and has since expanded to 24 owned-and-operated stations with transmissions covering a larger geographical area of Australia than any other television network except for Australia Plus which broadcasts to 44 countries.

Throughout Queensland, Southern New South Wales, Eastern South Australia, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory, Western Australia and Tasmania, it is a Nine Network affiliate, while the rest of WIN’s coverage areas (especially those that did not have a second license in the 1989-1990’s regional television aggregation) are affiliated with the Seven Network, along with several digital-only Network Ten-affiliated stations (either on WIN’s own right or through partnership with other regional television broadcasters).

The network's name, WIN is a reference to its original Wollongong station WIN-4, itself an acronym of Wollongong Illawarra New South Wales. Through its news division, WIN News, WIN Television broadcasts a half-hour news service to twenty regional markets.