Changes to the Antenna Awards - no longer a public event (unless in the event of another licence extension)
As of today the plan for the awards are as follows:
On our final night of broadcast, June 30, we will be holding a special livestream from the C31 studios from 8pm where we will be announcing the nominees and winners. This will not be a public event. We are exploring what options we have to include nominees/winners in this livestream.
In the event Community TV is successful in receiving a renewal to our existing broadcast licences beyond June 30, we will reschedule the event to late August, most likely Saturday 28th, where we will hold the event as planned, safely and at full capacity, with all interstate guests, VIPs and existing ticket holders able to attend.
They ask you how you are, and you just have to say youâre fine when youâre not really fine, but you just canât get into it, because they would never understand.
31 Digital (Brisbane) was poorly run anyway towards the end with cronies stacked on the board leading to its demise. The uncertainly around the licence extension was just the final nail on the coffin.
C31 (Melbourne) always seemed the most organised and passionate about community broadcasting out of the 5 so itâs no wonder itâs still on air.
WTV (Perth) would charge charity/community organisations airtime for their CSAs to air. $10 per 30 seconds. You may think this is fair but thereâs not another community or commercial television station which charges for that.
From an on-air perspective at least, (quality of the presentation, etc.) TVS was probably a reasonably close second.
But I think a mid-2000s launch and signal availability may have been issues too big for Sydneyâs 2nd community station (after the completely amateur CTS-31, who died in April 2004) to overcome.
Yes. Melbourne had the bonus of incumbency. Also the fact peopleâs perception: âI watched that channel years ago and it was rubbishâ means you probably wonât get them back.
If community television did leave the airwaves thereâs always Aurora (on Foxtel) and the commercial networks Multichannels to air shows (Vasiliâs Garden is still on 7Two and Blokesworld on 7Mate for example).
I donât know who caved on that decision, but can tell you right now, thereâs no way this side of hell freezing over, that the commercial networks & ABC/SBS will agree to giving up spectrum & merging networks into essentially 3 multiplexes now, while a community station gets to have an entire 7MHz channel all to themselves for 1 digital SD channel, whilst also taking up a valuable UHF channel that the networks will probably need to use for Metro translators if they have to merge & drop from 5 to 3 channels.
The mobile carriers will just have to miss out on getting that spectrum.
If the TV networks are forced into it, losing spectrum, I can see it going to court & costing the Government/taxpayers lots & lots in compensation.
The community stations shouldâve been told to do a deal with a commercial network to carry them, or be told to join the ABC or SBS multiplex.
The first round of the Digital dividend & resulting restack, yes the networks lost some TV spectrum, but they didnât actually lose any channels, they still had use of one 7MHz channel each.
Aurora is full of infomercials and religious programming. And community groups have to pay to have a programme slot let alone a community service announcement on it.
Itâs right that they canât justify the use of a channel to themselves, but I think thatâs the answer not the problem - C31/44 should be moved to being on a DVB-T2 service on the unassigned channel - VHF10 in the main capitals, and that be added to by allocating the other 5 networks space on there to carry either additional HD or even 4K content to push DVB-T2 uptake.
A migration to DVB-T2 does the same thing as the first restack - 3 channels of DVB-T2 provides more net data rate than 5 channels of DVB-T, and coming with HEVC means an effective increase in what services they can provide. Though I can see them doing it on 4 channels to offer a net increase for the commercials, or a single legacy DVB-T.
As much as itâll ruffle broadcasters - the money to be made from a 600MHz band clearance wonât be left on the table long term. This 3 year extension is about as long as itâd take them to work through doing that planning.
I see them having a choice between keeping DVB-T and taking a chunk of cash to share spectrum, or moving to DVB-T2 and getting less cash but keeping the net amount of bits. But I canât see the status quo continuing.
