Talking to Shane Dunlop (C31 GM) a few days ago and they don’t seem all that interested in moving fully online. The revenue just isn’t there and there’s not a lot of interest in community tv on demand services. Their audience is purely traditional linear broadcast.
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Delaying the inevitable. The only option seems to be a carve out in either iview or SBS on demand. Community radio has adjusted to streaming, podcasts and digital more broadly, why is C31 to precious to do the same?
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Because the market for online-only community TV, be that as BVOD/SVOD or live-streaming isn’t there. It’s an apples and oranges comparison.
Further to the point, some community radio stations understanding streaming and podcasting. Most, frankly, do not. The benefit that the radio sector has is strong national leadership through the CBAA - very hard for C31 and C44 to do the same with just two TV stations left.
If the “online model” worked, that streaming platform that 31 Brisbane evolved into would still be operational. TVS, which had the backing of a university and therefore served a purpose as a training platform for students, would still be operational. It doesn’t work.
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Cool, so what’s the alternative? Inevitably TVs won’t be sold with a tuner and linear signals are going to be switched off. Can’t keep your head in the sand wishing for a different reality.
Hunter TV in Newcastle is now known as Newy 87.8 FM.
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Not too familiar with the situation in Adelaide, but C31 in Melbourne has slowly been pivoting towards in-house production. One example is The Cellar Door, which made its way over to SBS Food in January. That’s one potential future for the organisation - as a ‘creative house’ if you will for other independent producers. That is, however, still a pivot from running a TV station, and then you’re damned if the remaining broadcasters aren’t buying.
The end result undoubtedly will be fewer diverse voices on television. Language and religious programs that reach an older audience through linear TV broadcasts will struggle to migrate online, in part because producers haven’t been proactively chasing a younger audience. Niche programs may pivot successfully to online platforms like YouTube or Twitch, though I suspect most will die out.
Long live Fishcam.
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But radio is still going? I don’t think television is anywhere near dead, as a medium.
This is what CUE TV in Invercargill, New Zealand did. It was a privately owned local TV station. Ended up making “University Challenge” for Prime NZ but not sure what else.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/business/74206337/cue-tv-finds-new-life-helped-by-university-challenge
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Talking with some techs in Melbourne, they’re not happy at all that C31 got a 3 year extension, there’s no chance in hell the C31 transmitter will last another 3 years & PIE equipment is failing too.
It’s only a matter of time before they’re off air, because they are not willing to put any money into their equipment, they wouldn’t spend money on anything after the last extension, let alone now after this one.
The tech guys are trying to keep old failing equipment on air with no funding, it’s only a matter of time, more than likely a short period of time.
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C31 is under severe financial pressure, looking at their latest report on the ACNC website. They are hoping to renegotiate the lease on their premises and leave before it expires, and then move.
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So why would you fight so hard for an extension you can’t service, it’s almost like they’re trading while insolvent, continuing to operate & rack-up debts they can’t possibly pay?
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That’s quite an allegation.
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They are not insolvent. They are hoping to get back into a better financial position, but it looks like it will be an enormous struggle.
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It’s almost like being threatened to be shut down for five years has an effect on sponsorship opportunities.
Hopefully this new extension gives them an opportunity to raise more funds through their various new productions and sponsorships to get in a better position. Is it a shock they didn’t want to do anything to the transmitter when they might have never been able to use it again?
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Why I never said they were insolvent, I said it’s almost like they are, if they have to renegotiate their lease & then hope to leave before it expires (I’m guessing to somewhere cheaper), that means they’re in deep trouble & flying very close to the line.
Get that close & it’s not very often you can trade your way back out from there, especially as a community broadcaster who can only get money from grants, donations or sponsorships, all of which in the current climate are not going to be very forthcoming.
The transmitter problems aren’t just recent, they’ve been going on, back at least a couple of years, how long was the last extension for, but yet they still didn’t spend any money on it, just hoping it’d last.
It’s almost dead now, they know it can’t go on without spending money on it & that they don’t have any money to spend, but yet they fight to continue for another 3 years, what hoping the transmitter will last that length of time again with nothing done about it.
They know the transmitter is almost dead, they’ve been told they’ve got another 3 years to operate, but yet they haven’t, nor look like they will anytime soon, say here’s $5000 or more to fix the transmission equipment to get us through another 3 years, or replace some of the cheaper equipment.
They’re patching a leaky boat as they go in the cheapest way possible, hoping it doesn’t sink before they get to land.
They’re not the first community station (radio or TV) to be in this situation & won’t be the last, but most others before them have given up when the writings on the wall, not fought to continue for another 3 years when they knew they couldn’t do it, & it’s not like this was just sprung on them, they’ve know for some time it was coming & were supposed to look at other options to continue, whether they did or not I don’t know & whether they thought the other options weren’t an option again I don’t know?
The old TVS & Sydney Datacast transmitters are still sitting at Gore Hill in Sydney in a fully operational state (AFAIK), if C31 wanted to give BAI some money for them I’m sure they could get parts or even the entire transmitter to keep going for another 3 years, but that doesn’t seem very likely to happen.
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The last extension was 12 months and given within 24 hours of a switch off. There’s been no certainty. Not sure what you don’t understand.
Difficult to expend money on something where you are told you only have twelve months, can’t spend huge money on something which the government tells you will be unusable come 12 months time.
I’m actually surprised that the government have all of a sudden given a 36 month extension, since all these extensions have been just 12 months. Probably tells you that they don’t have a proper plan.
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Doesn’t matter how long before switch off the extension was given, last time they were given 12 months more, but not even at eleven months to go did they say, great, lets do some maintenance/replacement on some of our transmission gear to make sure we stay on air another 12 (or 11 or 10) months.
Preventative maintenance & sometimes replacement of parts early is far better than fixing it after a failure in broadcast, especially when you need that to operate & that’s the whole point of your business.
Not sure what part you don’t understand?
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The whole Radio Narrowcast sector is based on this, well actually the fact that there are no guarantees, the Government could tell all narrowcasters to switch off any time, but there’s still plenty of money being spent in that sector & still people buying new licences & starting up.
Broadcast is a very expensive game, troubled & difficult at times, 12 months or even 3 years isn’t a long time in broadcast, most contracts between broadcasters, etc are 10 to 15 years long, but things, along with technology in this industry change fast, last DTV re-stack was less than 10 years ago, yet here we are talking about spending millions & millions of dollars doing it all again making the commercial & national TV networks replace transmitters to do DVB-T2, & quite a big chunk of viewers replacing TV sets to watch.
If you can’t afford it, you shouldn’t be in it.
Community tv, by its very nature, “cannot afford it”. They are not a mainstream broadcaster with the business and revenue generation to “afford it”.
Community tv is reliant on volunteers, sponsors, selling timeslots and the generosity of benefactors. That is what makes it community tv.