It;s not the oldest tv tower as it was built in 1964 as a replacement for the original Ch 9 tower, but it’s the tallest. Yes I think it’s a shame. It is an amazing structure, sadly in need of a coat of paint. Strange that it will go, TXA spent a huge amount of money on the building at the base of the tower, hence no money left for paint. The Ch 10 towers in Brisbane and Melbourne are of similar design.
6 Likes
Don’t think playout centres like Foxtel, Media Hub, Deluxe or NPC Media will be around much longer.
Only a matter of time until it all gets off-shored to Bangalore where operators only cost a tenth of the poor pay these places already pay here in Australia, sad.
Here is a recent example of channel playout from Europe moving to India
1 Like
Shhh…don’t give them ideas. 
The networks are all bleeding money bigtime, this would be a no-brainer for sure.
All except TEN have outsourced, the next step is to off-shore.
Until someone over there puts something to air that they shouldn’t.
Let’s face it, I’d rather have all the networks closed and the bandwidth allocated to mobile broadband. They don’t want to employ Australians, fine. Fuck them. Get off our spectrum.
1 Like
Prime started a local news live from their Southport studios around 1992/93 at 6pm. Nine decided to establish a local news from Surfers Paradise in 1996 at 5.30pm. Seven decided to team up with Prime and produce a joint local news in 1998 from Prime’s facility (Seven aired it at 5.30pm, Prime at 6.30pm). This agreement was canned in 1999. Prime went back to producing the bulletin by themselves but ended up axing it in 2000. The building is now home to 102.9 Hot Tomato. Seven decided to try local news again, this time without Prime and from their Surfers Paradise newsroom in 2016. Ten hasn’t attempted a local news on the Gold Coast.
To further complicate things, NBN and NRTV (now WIN) News reporters from Lismore in the early 90’s would travel to the Gold Coast to cover news if there was something relevant for their audiences. NRTV also produced local programming from their studios in Ashmore in the 80’s and early 90’s.
Nine, Seven, Ten, ABC and Sky News all have TV news journalists on the Gold Coast. Seven and Ten actually work in the same building in Surfers Paradise, but are on different floors. ABC are based at Mermaid Beach. Sky News is based at the Gold Coast Bulletin’s newsroom in Southport.
Nine, Seven and Ten aren’t allowed to sell Gold Coast advertising under their licence condition, but there are several exemptions. NBN, Prime7 and WIN have no restrictions on Gold Coast advertising.
1 Like
It will all depend on Shake’s ratings. Bold and Peach are both some of the biggest multi-channels in Australia, they wouldn’t just throw away those names.
1 Like
10 Shake will be played out from the cloud. Dabl, a CBS multichannel, has been played from the cloud since it was launched late last year.
1 Like
I think this is related to the Federal Government’s insistence at taking back for the spectrum allocated to community television in Melbourne and Adelaide.
5 Likes
VHF spectrum is more valuable to sell than the UHF band community TV occupies.
The FTA’s should have been moved to UHF, same as what the UK did.
Can easily see that ABC will be moved onto the SBS Ch7 mux and share with SBS and that the Ch11 mux as used by TEN will be closed down and SEVEN, NINE and TEN will share the Ch6 and Ch8 mux’s between them. Meaning the Fed Govt will be able to auction of a huge slab of spectrum on VHF which will command huge dollars from auctioning Ch9, Ch10, Ch11, & Ch12 spectrum for telcos. They might even throw in Ch9a and move DAB+ somewhere else.
1 Like
Seams like viewers will never receive 4K free-to-air TV if the government has this mindset.
1 Like
Sorry, but that won’t work. Telcos do not want VHF spectrum at all. All cellular mobile networks operate in UHF or higher bands. The lowest frequencies used by telcos these days are in the 600 Mhz band in the US. Back in the very early analog mobile days (pre cellular) it was around 470 Mhz.
VHF bands would require larger antennas than can be stuffed inside a phone casing. And the channels would not be wide enough for worthwhile data flow.
No, it’s the UHF band that’s valuable.
9 Likes
The reality is that the whole range of spectrum is valuable and any rationalisation of allocations cant happen in a vacuum and there have been moved in this space for the last 5 years or so, but it hasnt really got press - there is definite interest in freeing up spectrum so it can be resold (especially to telcos who pay decent prices for it)
What this does mean though is that there are unlikely to be many new spectrum licences issued for broadcasting.
1 Like
Random question and feel free to move it to a different thread, but if for some reason all AM services shut down in Australia except for an emergency service. Would that spectrum be useful for anything?
Don’t know if this is the right place (feel free to move it)
Back of the Fox Sports News studio video wall (from https://twitter.com/HugoMcWilliam)
6 Likes
AM spectrum is of no real use for two way radio or mobile style applications but still may find a new use such as DRM radio broadcasting. There wouldn’t be much of a business case for DRM unless DAB+ is a success nationally though. Apparently India is spending some $$$ on DRM.
2 Likes
So no use for new technologies then? Data etc?
The AM band would useless for data I think, its not wide enough and the antennas required in phones couldn’t be made small enough and be effective.
One reason why in phones you only see FM radios, never AM.
5 Likes
Also, the AM/MW band is just not very big; 531 to 1700 KHz is just a span of 1.17 MHz that is equivalent of from 88.0 to 89.2 on the FM band.
6 Likes