Community TV channels get final broadcast lifeline

Australia’s community TV stations have been given a final lifeline by the government, just nine days before they would have had to switch off their transmissions.

The CTV stations will now have to give up their broadcast licences and switch to online only by the end of June next year.

The extension was announced this morning by communications minister Mitch Fifield.

The terrestrial spectrum used by community TV stations is of high value to the government, which can instead auction it off to other users, including telco providers.

Staffed by volunteers, Australia’s community TV providers include TVS Sydney, C31 Melbourne and Geelong, 31 Digital Brisbane, 44 Adelaide and WTV Perth.

A statement from Fifield said: “Following consultation with CTV broadcasters operating terrestrial services, the Government will allows these services that wish to take up the extension until the end of June 2017 to transition to an online environment.”

Tim Burrowes

Tim Burrowes is the founder of Mumbrella. At various points he's been editor, content director and editor-at-large of Mumbrella. He's written about media and marketing in Australia, the Middle East and the UK.

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topics community TVMitch FifieldtelevisionTV

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Comments: 2

David Hague 13 Dec 16

Typical. Don’t worry about the people they serve. The $$ they can cough up by flogging the bandwidth is FAR more important. I mean, someone has to pay for pollies’ retirement perks …

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Spinner 14 Dec 16

I can hear crickets… No one actually cares because no one actually watches

Reply

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