Have they given an indication of what they might do if they win the next election?
my local MP at the time (ALP) said they supported the transition to online in principle
This was from the email I got from them in 2015. I am not sure if their position has changed since then:
We support Community Television going āover-the-topā or using the internet as a distribution platform but the industry needs to be given time and support to ensure the transition is successful.
I hear that The Antenna Awards will return later this year for the first time since 2014. Nice to see them getting more confidence now, such a fucking disaster the Libs tried to pull off, and managing to kill off 31 in Brisbane and Sydney (and almost WTV).
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31 Brisbane did it all by themselves. Moribund organisation.
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Although the uncertainty about the future of community television most likely killed them in the end, itās probably all but one of the factors that disadvantaged TVS from the very start despite being an otherwise mostly competent (at least from an on-air perspective, not sure how things went behind the scenes though) community TV broadcaster. Others include being perhaps the final TV station in Australia to launch a regular analogue broadcast in 2005/06, not being allowed on Digital TV until 2010, etc.
If like C31 in Melbourne it began broadcasting in the mid-1990s (Sydney had the somewhat amateurish CTS-31 in the original/trial stage of CTV broadcasting, but TVS won the permanent licence in the mid-2000s), I suspect TVS may have tried to hold it out and continue to this day although weāll probably never quite know the full story about the rise and fall of Television Sydney.
They said they were going to relaunch as an online service in 2015/16 after they closed TV operations. So much for that planā¦
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I just donāt see community TV working online - if youāre online you donāt need a linear channel - and no community TV broadcaster is going to make a VOD service better than just putting the stuff on YouTube.
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Whatās Hunter TVās plan of attack? I can see that they stream select events, have on-demand (embedded YouTube) content, and write news. Are they doing much beyond that?
Western Sydney University at Kingswood, where TVS was located, has excellent video and audio production facilities.
https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/humanities_communication_arts/hca/about/facilities
The basis to create a television or radio service exists if they really wanted to, but it seems their interest in broadcasting has long gone (?).
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There isnāt any, the industry knows it, the government has a dislike for community and public broadcasting. Once the signal is switched off, community TV dies.
Community TV is about localism, you canāt remake that online with no money.
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Thatās called a normal YouTube channel, nothing really special these days.
Issue is that once CTV is allowed to have one HD / 4K simulcast and one multichannel, it could be revived. The quality of the content is also a bit iffy as well, not faulting the production crew but more money needs to be invested in the sector.
my point. thatās why terrestrial is necessary.
CTV doesnāt need it! Just one SD channel is fine, if they want to share the multiplex - do it but leave them with a SD channel, thatās all they want.
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Necessary for what exactly?
Community TV is about localism, you canāt remake that online with no money.
To continue to be a thing.
For community ātelevisionā. Most people arenāt going to know to seek out the kind of programming that fills community TV channels - but might watch it when flipping around their TV or looking at a schedule.
To me, an argument against community TV is equally applied against TV as a whole - you either think thereās a place for dedicating spectrum to linear broadcasts or there isnāt.
When all the other TV networks are running national schedules - with local news, and a sports panel show or two, about the only genuine ālocalā content; and almost nothing produced outside of Sydney and Melbourne - I think thereās a vital importance to spectrum being allocated for local broadcasting.
Maybe itās a thing for another topic, but Iād like to see community TV in the same style as the local TV operations that started in the UK - where they can be commercially operated, but have to fulfil minimum requirements of local content for the community they are targeting. Allowing some strictly regulated commercial players could allow for better financed local broadcasting - rather than the slow decline into public domain movies and networked content.
Either way, huge consolidation of terrestrial media voices, especially outside Sydney/Melbourne mean that I think community TV is still playing a vital role, and should expand.
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Yes perhaps for a different group but unfortunately the slow decline into public domain movies and networked content is exactly what happened in the UK with many āLocal TVā stations or you just end up with a mess like what happened with Thatās TV with repeated day old local news.
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Even STV (the ITV affiliate in Scotland) attempt at running a local TV service was unsuccessful - its Glasgow and Edinburgh channels was replaced by a networked STV2 channel in 2017 (which itself closed only a few weeks ago)
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Snowy Mountains Television is now doing a beta test of a live stream on their website.
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It seems that sometime this year Q Online TV was rebranded as Hitchhike TV. The website hasnāt changed apart from the logo in the top corner.
It seems like either a partnership with Ninja Factory, or Ninja Factory has taken over the service. Either way, Ninja Factory is somehow involved.
New football show on C31 started last night
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