Digital Forty Four TV services go off the air
The free-to-air digital Forty Four television services will be switched off today, three months after the Australian Communications and Media Authority decided to end the trial licence.
The services were operated by Broadcast Australia; general manager for new platforms Martin Farrimond said the company was “disappointed” that Sydney viewers will no longer receive Forty Four.
Forty Four operated for six and a half years on the unassigned digital channel 35, offering National Indigenous Television, the Australian Christian Channel, the Expo home shopping channel, Teachers TV, Federal parliament, headlines from the ABC, and a digital program guide.
Farrimond said it seemed counter-productive to remove the service at a time the Government is encouraging people to migrate to digital television, and hoped that the Government’s consultation process on the way the spectrum liberated from the switch off of analogue TV should be used would result in a suitable spectrum framework.
“Reserving and allocating for broadcasting just a modest portion of this digital dividend would permit the realisation of exciting new services such as further in-home TV channels, 3D TV, digital radio and potentially mobile TV. Not providing an evolutionary pathway for these services would limit the opportunities for future free-to-air TV and digital radio service evolution and innovation,” said Farrimond.
Damn… I have been waiting for years for them to extend the coverage of Digital 44 to other areas so that I could view it as well. I guess It’s hopeless now.
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