or Brisbane who switched off a while later. But I suspect it was crippling them financially.
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Though itās good to see the spectrum used by community TV in Sydney and Brisbane being put to good use, and justifying the attempts to get them all to switch off.
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Although TVS was a reasonably professionally operated community station, they always had major disadvantages compared to the other TV broadcasters in Sydney.
Only starting in 2005-06 was one thing, but it was absolutely ridiculous for a new community TV licence to only launch on analogue at that point in time. TVS probably shouldāve been on Digital TV from the start - either with a temporary analogue service (closing after a couple of years, the same amount of time that the station actually ran analogue & digital services simultaneously for) or only on Digital TV to encourage people to upgrade from analogue.
TVS having their TV guides published in the newspapers, going Digital and sponsoring major events like the Royal Easter Show helped the station build a profile, but it was probably a bit too late with the number of multichannels launched by the mainstream networks in that era (2009-11).
Even if the government secures the futures for the remaining community TV stations, unfortunately I donāt think community TV will ever return to Sydney or Brisbane (at least through terrestrial broadcasting anyway).
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What is it being used for now?
RF Noiseā¦
Sarcasm Iād say.
So Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth remain on air?
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Correct
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The whole treatment of these community stations is ridiculous. They should be given another 5 years at least instead of this stupid 6 month bs.
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C31 has a new sub-channel āC31 Playsā which shows gaming content during the day and classic C31 programming at night, it is available only via Twitch. If only they should put the main channel on Twitch.
They need to WM it like the main channel and not have the frame that they do nowā¦
If only they could add another channel to the muxā¦
Hey guys,
Iām the Content Manager for C31 in Melbourne (although what I say doesnāt represent the station, you know the drill) and I work with our Digital Manager to manage what weāre doing online.
In practice, that means I look after the website, supervise the Twitch project and work on general TV stuff too.
I just wanted to quickly chime in re: the C31Plays thing (@TheHomeOfMusic @melbournefan) . Weāre not broadcasting our linear TV stream to Twitch because of copyright issues, we broadcast a lot of music shows and these are obviously a big issue in the online space. Heck, weāre not even sure about continuing the āAlways Onā nature of the stream much further into 2018. The Twitch project is mainly there as a resource for our new volunteers to work on live shows in a format that will become more mainstream in the very near future.
For instance, we had a team of volunteers fully run this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kA3iNvXYpA&t=14s) pilot stream before Christmas to test the concept - This type of content is what will become prevalent on that channel in the near future.
With that out of the way, if you wanted to ask an insider any questions/suggest things - Iām all ears! Iām definitely not one of the big kahuna in the organisation, but I love talking with viewers and would love to promote a more open dialogue in 2018.
So, ask away!
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I reckon, try out YouTube more as a source for online content after the cutoff. Itās simple and even with utilities like Xsplit or OBS, it can be simple to move online for broadcasting.
With YT as well, its easier for your viewers as well as they can stream your channel on the Apple TV or the Chromecast.
Welcome @MitchellC31 to Media Spy!
Tho. I donāt know what C31 uses for Playout, but OBS or XSplit would not be as practical but would be a cheaper and more flexible system if you wanted to use only one computer. Still tho, for continuity and uptime reasons it would have to be done on the Playout system.
YouTube is good for Amateur videos and the like but as what I said, if you want something polished off and something with no ContentID issues. I donāt think YouTube would be that good. The streams can be integrated into a C31 AppleTV App if thereās demand.
Weāre looking at using YouTube as our primary distribution point for VoD content in the near future but weāre still talking with the board and other stakeholders to figure out where to go from here. Iād say YT is very likely though.
In regards to livestreaming, itās kinda troublesome with YT (especially for the linear stream from TV), as ContentID will always pick us up for any music shows that we air (i.e 1700, DMTV etc).
We chose Twitch for now as it was most relevant to the content we are looking to produce (gaming-related), and I think that this will be a big point for us in the future too. Weāve been trying to build our own version of Netflix for too long, and realistically when there are established platforms in the market already, it seems to be a waste of money to limit your audience to your own app or website.
Twitch can stream to Chromecasts and Apple TVās too fyi 
For live events weāre using Livestream Studio, this is mainly a legacy thing from when we were doing a lot of live sports events but it works well for our needs and is pretty reliable (moreso than OBS or Xsplit). Weāre also using a suite of software built by Playbox for playout currently, but as I mentioned previously this likely wonāt be relevant in a couple of weeks.
Itās an interesting point but from a business perspective itās hard to justify moving off of a platform that is already working so well (adpocalypse and Jake Paul aside). Whilst moving off of the Hostworks suite was definitely not ideal, it means that we can use the money we were spending on that to build our digital audiences on other platforms (whether that be by creating content directly for them, or by advertising our socials with AdWords/Facebook etc.)
ContentID also isnāt that big of a problem for us, we have the licenses so for any VoD content thatās no issue. Itās just the livestream that causes problems (as if itās flagged, the livestream is instantly taken down). Weāre still looking for a viable solution on this one, but Iād say weāll be getting there pretty soon.
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Damn, I misread this - Previous statements re: Playbox are relevant, but internally we were using a Matrox Monarch HDX to output video to our previous livestreams. The reason our stream was so unreliable over the past few months (the first website change) is due to incompatibilities between our encoding equipment and their servers.
Nothing to say we canāt brush the dust off of the Matrox, but finding a place to store the stream (thatās cost effective, works with our current equipment and wonāt constantly take us down with a form of ContentID) is the biggest issue.
I think you should repeat The Leak Quiz Night on heavy rotation on your channel.
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Also, consider bringing up Patreon to the board, crowdsourcing is always a good idea.
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Iād just hope that C31 can convince the government to stay on the air. Governments past and present have let the sector down but I suppose community TV is an easy target.
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My main issue with c31 is that there is a great opportunity to provide a point of difference and content that will engage a new audience as well as maintain its cultural purpose and follow the charter.
For the last year I have closely been following what they are up to as I previously had ties with the organisation.
Sadly the same content seems to be constantly produced that isnāt engaging social media, and seems like itās in a vicious loop. Lots of short money grabbing videos about food and drinks, live comedy (which is hard enough to grab veiwers in commercial and the public broadcasters let alone community tv) and not a lot of new innovation and more looking for comedy gigs (in a commercial sense) for the same talent that appear on all live events. I have noticed a few small community initiates which is great, but there needs to be a drawcard to the content that C31 are producing and at the moment it appears there isnāt any.
I am all for it staying on the air, but it does appear that there should be new management/board though and a lot of the past 3 years has been wasted with people at the helm of the organisation not really knowing what to do.
Its great they have had extensions for the on air broadcast, but they donāt seem to be using it to their advantage to innovate.
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I could probably do with a few less fishing shows. They seem to be on all the time as I flick past.
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