Australia's five community TV channels face permanent closure, as government readies the sell-off of the broadcast spectrum to telcos.
In a keynote delivered to the RadComms 2014 conference in Sydney yesterday, Minister for Communications Malcolm Turnbull made clear the government's intention to sell and advised community TV operators – such as Sydney's TVS chairman and media stalwart Harold Mitchell – to move their ventures online, “the uber-platform to which most people in Australia are connected 24/7.”
Unlike all other broadcasters, the five community TV stations operating out of each capital city do not automatically receive the right to operate a transmitter when they are licensed to run a broadcasting service. The current transmitter license was supposed to run until mid-2019, while TV licenses were up for renewal in December this year. In what government considers to be a conciliatory move, it has offered operators a further year to take advantage of the analogue broadcast, while slashing the 2019 license altogether.
Melbourne station C31 operations manager Matt Field told AdNews that community TV would be unable to make the move online for a number of reasons include the huge financial cost and the time implications. “Asking us to make that shift in 15 months is nothing short of insulting. It's a smokescreen so that the government can clear the decks and get ready to sell it off down the line,” he said.
C31 attracts 450,000 viewers per week and serves up to seven minutes of advertising and sponsorship per hour. Field points out that the non-profit station is funded by advertising and sponsorship from local SMEs to the tune of $2.6m a year. “We're not taking on the national operators. We operate under a completely different remit. But, among all the other reasons for not moving online, we are acutely aware that our advertisers simply won't move there with us.”
Known as the 'sixth channel', community TV operates on a spectrum which, for the most part, remains substantially vacant. Government wishes to take advantage of this and 'replan' it for alternative non-broadcasting uses, such as mobile phone or internet transmission.
“I have no doubt that this transition is in the best interests of community television. It will deliver wider audiences, at less cost on a wider range of devices and the ability to do more than linear broadcasting,” said Turnbull.
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