Red Letter Day for Community TV
It's not just ABC and SBS that wants good news from the Federal Budget. Community Television is on a knife edge.
- Published by David Knox
- on
- Filed under News
Budget day may have public broadcasters hoping for good news, but Community Television is surely in a more precarious position. It’s fighting for its life.
For years the sector has been wanting clarity on a transition from analogue to digital television.
Tonight it will learn if it has again been ignored or whether the government will allocate funding and the all-important spectrum to enable our state-based community channels to join the other networks in the land of digital.
While the government sends out rosy messages of the benefits of digital, it can’t keep inhibiting community broadcasting, which is desperate to offer locally-produced content.
Freeview recently announced it would include community broadcasters on its EPG, which so far is a help in community’s campaign, but not much more.
Yesterday OzTAM said 43.4% of viewers in five capital cities had access to digital television. It is highly unlikely that the same 43.4% have gone to the extra trouble of ensuring they still receive channels such as Channel 31 or TVS in their relevant cities.
The Australian Community Television Alliance (ACTA) says that just as the ABC’s Children’s Channel is targeted at an audience group under-served by existing channels, Community Television provides access for the diverse special interest groups, ethnic communities and social networks too.
So far Senator Conroy’s message to the sector amounts to little more than promising “it won’t be left behind” (the previous government said even less).
Tonight it has to put its money where its mouth is, which in times of recession will be doubly difficult.
9 Responses
So far Senator Conroy’s message to the sector amounts to little more than promising “it won’t be left behind” (the previous government said even less).
It has been very interesting that this is all that is said about CTV, but since following this industry’s processes for a long period, I can see why the neglect by all government has been so prevelant; It’s been a poor interpretation of commercial television and the federal government(s) are being wise in spending public tax dollars on another media service. I really don’t see community television’s demise, but it will come back under a different ownership, structure and presentation; In other words, more responsive to the local public and in the public’s hands:-). Stay tuned for the next phase of CTV coming soon!
I’ve always found it puzzling that the Liberal party has been so much more helpful to community TV than Labour as it was the liberal government that granted the temporary licences and eventually the permanent licences. You would have thought that Labour would have more connection to ‘grassroots’ organisations.
Surely with digital transmissions being much more economical there is an opportunity for community TV to use some of the spectrum. I don’t know about anyone else but I really don’t need to have 4 channels of the same channel 7 picture.
@matt i do agree that the more the networks offer viewers with digital that you cant get on analogue the more quicker people will upgrade, i think a switch to digital will be good for the community stations as you will then have decent picture quality and more people will be more aware that its there(because it will be in the epg)
@mac
Digital won’t go beyond that 50% mark until tough choices about analogue are made. People aren’t going to switch until services start to disappear. Remember the rush for converter boxes in the US before the first round of switch offs? There is no point setting up the infrastructure needed for them to simulcast to a declining audience.
Considering lots of people with analogue can’t even get good quality C31 (or ignore it), a switch to digital will give them a larger audience even if take up is lower than 50%.
@matt: if community tv were to go digital it will still most likely simulcast in analogue until the analogue shut off date because as you said the “near majority” have digital (near majority= less than half= minority) therefore keeping both digital and analogue viewers happy even if it will cost more.
seriously they need to get rid of these crap and useless community channels like TVS. they are a waste of space on australian television.
“Times of recession” eh?
It is an expansionary budget, they all have been. They are using the recession to mask increased spending. If C31 doesn’t get money in this budget it will be the same reason as every budget. We fund ABC, NITV and SBS, community TV doesn’t need to be made a fourth government funded thing.
Digital transmissions are cheaper to run than analogue. Flash-cut C31 to digital. Giving digital quality pictures to the near majority with digital is more important than keeping an analogue simulcast at cost to the taxpayer. C31 Melbourne is ready to go digital now, so why spend money?
can someone tell me why all networks are repeating their evening programs during the day? Surely if people want to watch these shows they will watch them in their evening time-slots so give back the daytime programs that we want to watch and dont be so lazy to reapeat programs that have already been seen…
Sadly, I think the days of Community TV are almost over.
I doubt the government will be handing out large amounts of cash to support the cut over to digital and the reality for the community channels is as more and more people move to digital their audience numbers will drop and that will make it harder for them to pick up sponsorship dollars (aka commercials) and remain a viable presence in the TV landscape.
Given that the group that is advising the Minister on the future of the community sector in TV does not have anyone from community TV, it does not paint a good picture for the future.
This will be a sad day for many communities and special interest groups as community TV is their only medium for them. I doubt we will be seeing shows such as Room To Grow that provides information for new parents suddenly appearing on Nine, Seven or Ten nor will Geelong Footy League show be broadcast on Fox Sports and I cannot see SBS broadcasting Ethiopian News – although it probably should be if it was sticking to its original charter and not simply being a rebroadcast of BBC2