Fair Work could not care a fig.
Ask the employees of a national TV network who had a retrospective pay cut last year despite their EA.
2 Likes
Are we happy now?
1 Like
Guess the Melbourne team will be happy if it really happens, Iāll have to have a chat with them next week.
Maybe itās only happening cause they cracked it with C31, or what was discussed here got back to C31?
Sorry if this is a dumb question, but could these upgrades perhaps lead to an upgrade to HD?
Fairly sure the community licenses cannot broadcast anything more than one SD channel - others may know better than me.
5 Likes
Correct, and I doubt itās due to a few mumbling techs. Itāll be due to the fact they have had a licence extension for longer than 12 months and a bit of certainty, as anyone with half a business brain could tell.
3 Likes
Agreed. Why I beat in something that isnāt long term.
Now they have that certainty itās a worthwhile investment
I donāt know of any limitation on community TV operators having more than one SD channel ā though I wouldnāt be surprised if any such limitation existed ā but the HPON operator on Darwin has a number of channels. I donāt know if HPONs are licenced under different conditions than CTV even though essentially they are the same thing.
I thought that limitation had something to do with the different modulation used by the community stations: QPSK compared to 64-QAM that the others use.
The modulation choice is an effect not a cause.
Basically, community TV were limited to 1 SD channel - to avoid them multichanneling and threatening commercial TV - and in turn, as they were only needing 1 SD channel, they were assigned a license with an antenna pattern/power restriction that factored in the use of QPSK, rather than the normal 16-QAM planning.
I canāt find the actual language of the restriction to 1 SD channel though - but I believe both the single SD and the use of QPSK were required.
The other stations like those in Darwin and remote WA are on HPON rather than community licenses - so arenāt covered by either these restrictions, or plans to shut them down; I suppose similar to how they didnāt bother restacking those areas to fit the block planning - because thereās no competing demand for the spectrum no oneās complaining.
2 Likes
Trying to find any legislation about this and coming up with naught so far, but found this interesting comment in a 2007 report into options for digital CTV broadcasting:
C31 Melbourne explained that it has the content to be able to operate more than a single standard definition channel.
ā¦ one Indigenous station, one childrenās channel, one ethnic channel, a diverse channel and our normal mainstream community channel we could pretty much fill up [a seven megahertz channel] tomorrow.
1 Like
It is mentioned in an amendment to the Radiocommunications Act 1992 that allowed the two stations to continue to broadcast beyond 1 July this year.
6 Likes
Ideally long term, a national CTV station ran by ACTA which is 31 and 44 and could add other state organisations to it over time would be the best solution. One national feed of local community programs from all the markets. Both online and on FTA. Either on the SBS or ABC mux or on some other way.
12 Likes
100% thisā¦
But then it ceases to be community television. Itās got to be produced locally in each market. A nationwide-community/local TV didnāt work in NZ (take Stratos for an example), I donāt see it working in Australia either. Yes it may bring down some costs, but you lose the point of community TV.
1 Like
Works for Face TV, no?
?? Itās the content thatās local not the distribution arm? Community channels routinely air content from other markets, 44 airs a lot of content made from Melbourne, and vice versa. Makers of the programs are mostly independent from the actual channels.
1 Like
Face is on pay-tv only, so no. Weāre talking FTA here.
Yeah sure, but if youāre going to network it, only one station will be training local peopleā¦ what about the rest? I guess with only two stations, it doesnāt really matter now.