NRN

NRN is a television station originating in Coffs Harbour, Australia. The station is owned by Network 10 and relays the network's content into the northern New South Wales broadcast market. The station was formally a partnership between NRN-11 Coffs Harbour (launched 23 January 1965) and RTN-8 Lismore (launched 12 May 1962).

NRN11 Coffs Harbour had merged with ECN8 Taree to form Northern Rivers Television, but later demerged in 1969. Around 1971, RTN8 Lismore and NRN11 merged, also forming Northern Rivers Television (NRTV), but was known on-air originally as 11–8 Television. The merged stations served the Mid North Coast and Northern Rivers areas of Northern New South Wales. During the mid-1970s, the station was concurrently known as Great Eastland Television, when the partnership shared programming and advertising with NEN-9 Tamworth and DDQ-10 Toowoomba/SDQ-4 Warwick, but they soon reverted to the NRTV brand.

In 1983, NRTV was relayed into the Gold Coast after a lobbying campaign from residents, although they could also watch the metropolitan commercial TV stations from Brisbane. NRTV's Gold Coast studios and offices were constructed in Ashmore on Southport Nerang Road. The Gold Coast facilities did not contain a newsroom, but relayed local news from the Coffs Harbour studios. News crews from Lismore travelled to the Gold Coast for stories of importance.

NRTV produced a considerable amount of local programming (approximately five each week), including regional news, three hours of live women's variety "Round About", 5 half-hours of live children's variety "Get Set", "Birthdays", and "Razzamataz, with on-air presenter Rhonda Logan" weekly, holiday specials "Summerthon", and a half-hour daily exercise program "Jazzacize". Live sports specials included the annual Grafton Cup Racing Carnival and the Grafton to Inverell Cycling Classic.

Live programs mainly originated from the Coffs Harbour Studios with programs being recorded at both the networks other studios located at Lismore and Gold Coast.

Some of the memorable names from that era were:

In December 1987, NRN and sister station RTN were sold by Northern Star for $75 million to Darling Downs Television, a company controlled by David Haynes, which at the time owned the Ten station in Brisbane.

1990 saw plans for NRTV to be merged with southern Queensland's Vision TV to form a larger regional network to respond to the growing aggregation of television into regional areas of the nation, but they were called off. On 31 December 1991, Northern New South Wales became the third area to be aggregated, and NRTV, via links to Network 10 (it was part of Northern Star Holdings), owned by Westfield Group chairman Frank Lowy), became its affiliate in the region. At one stage, NRTV was the subject of a bid from WIN Television. Nothing came of it, but had WIN gone through with the bid, it would have made NRTV the Nine Network affiliate (using the logos of its parent station in southern NSW and the campaigns of the Nine Network,^{[citation needed]} attempting a replication of the affiliation steal during the 1990 aggregation of Regional Queensland television) and would have left NBN as Network 10's affiliate instead in the area.^{[citation needed]}