Community TV Stations Rally Against Impending Licence Cancellation

Australian operators of community TV (CTV) stations are uniting in a last-ditch effort to convince Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull to reconsider a proposal that would see CTV Transmitter Licences being cancelled as at 31 December this year.

The issue has been on the table since September last year, when Turnbull first announced the proposal to not extend CTV operators' Apparatus Licences after this year, citing the need to free up spectrum space to trial new broadcasting standard MPEG4, and suggesting that it would be the "best outcome" for CTV operators to move exclusively online.

However, members of activist group Commit To Community Television have denied the need for CTV stations to vacate their current allocations in order to test MPEG4 and other new technologies, saying, "CTV services are NOT using the … allocation in any of the capital cities. It is therefore not necessary for CTV to vacate its current spectrum allocation in order for these trials to proceed".

"In fact, if CTV does vacate the spectrum at the end of the year, our channel will remain unused for a number of years," the group said in a statement. 

"In the future, there may be a need for CTV's spectrum — at this point, there will be capability to carry many more services than there are currently and there seems no reason why a small allocation of spectrum for CTV could not then be accommodated."

Commit To Community TV also question Turnbull's assertion that CTV stations do not reach a significant enough audience to justify ongoing spectrum access through till 2019, the group's projected target date to allow operators a bigger grace period to transition to a solely online environment, and present conclusion date for their existing Broadcast Service Act Licences.

"Community TV nationally reaches around 3 million viewers per month in the capital cities in which it broadcasts," the statement reads.

"Community TV, however, should not and indeed does not have its merits assessed based on commercial measurements of audience but in how it engages with its community. In fact, the three permanent CTV licensees (Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane) just prior to the announcement had their Broadcast Service Act (BSA) Licence extended to 2019 based on key criteria of community inclusion and participation, and their business capacity as assessed by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).

"Denying CTV a renewal of an Apparatus (transmitter) Licence leaves the sector stranded – the CTV operators will have a BSA Licence to operate a community TV station but will not have the required licence to operate the transmitter to broadcast their signal."

In addition, if CTV stations are forced to move online before they're technically ready to do so, the costs will be handed down to the consumer, CTCTV said.

"The internet is commonly available to varying degrees of service but it is not free to access, restricting the ability for services to be consumed by members of the public who may not have the means (or technical capacity) to download the data required to watch long-form video online," it said.

"This presents a tricky problem for Community TV as it is a requirement of the Broadcasting Services Act that a community broadcaster must be able to be received by commonly available equipment and must be made available to the public free of charge."

Ultimately, the group is seeking to have their Apparatus (transmitter) Licences extended to 2019 to run in concurrence with the existing BSA Licences to enable the broadcasters a realistic time frame in which to develop a survival strategy once they're online-only prospects.\

"It is clear that there will not be enough time to successfully transform our business models with the current deadline," CTCTV said in its statement. 

"It is important that all stakeholders now clearly articulate this to the Minister to ensure that CTV can continue into the future."

For more information, see Commit To Community Television's website.