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Barry Melville

Barry Melville, General Manager, Community Broadcasting Association of Australia

Mark has invited me to speak about community television's place in the sun.  That's a particular term or phrase which will, if you haven't heard it before, have more significance after I have spoken.

What's missing from the envisaged reviews is closure in terms of future regulatory arrangements for the digital carriage of community broadcasting; although we have been around the block a few times before, as you are about to discover.

In community broadcasting, we are no strangers to the odd review or two. In the area of community television, the whole schebang kicked off with a Lower House parliamentary review commissioned by the Labor Party back in 1992. This led to the sixth high powered television channel being reserved for community and educational purposes until a final decision was made on its use.  The community television trial, as it became known, commenced in 1994 using an open narrow-cast licence. 

In 1996 the ABA conducted a Ministerially-directed review into the uses of the sixth channel, which recommended: "If put to any use at all, the sixth channel should be used for community access television as the most socio-economic benefits presently appear likely to follow from this use."

In 1998 the then Minister, Senator Alston, made his promise that at last community TV would have 'its place in the sun' - his words.

The Minister made the commitment that community television would be guaranteed free access to the spectrum needed to broadcast at least one standard definition channel.  Bear in mind this is 1998, and there was lots of argumentation about what one standard definition channel would require in terms of bandwidth.

When the Television Broadcasting Services (Digital Conversion Act) of 1998 came along, it required a review into "the regulatory arrangements that should apply to the digital transmission of a community television service free of charge using spectrum in the broadcasting services bands allocated for use for the provision of datacasting services."

This review which, for today's purposes, we can call The Place in the Sun Review, came and went and in fact made no substantive recommendations affecting the future of community television services, digital or otherwise.  In fact digital television policy and planning proceeded apace toward other broadcasting industry outcomes, and for a while these processes seemed to be actively disrupting any opportunity for community television to proceed beyond the initial analogue trial phase.

Examples of these disruptions include the Minister, in May 1999, revoking the reservation of the sixth channel nationally for community educational purposes, leaving in place a reserved channel only in the six incumbent markets, which were and are: Brisbane, Lismore, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth.

By the way, two other trial services lost their licences in 1999 and they were Hobart and Bendigo.  So we did actually have hopes of a more extensive regional roll out of services at one stage.

Very quickly, the digital channel planning process ate up all of the spare channels, including UHF channels like 31 and 54, that had previously been part of a national blanket reservation.

Then in May 2001, Senator Alston announced the cancellation of the datacasting spectrum auctions; ostensibly due to inadequate competition within the market and potential problems with the licence term.  DCITA then conducted a departmental review, culminating in June 2002, into the digital transmission of community television which ultimately made no substantive recommendations about the medium- to long-term prospects for digital carriage, but did lead to some very welcome amendments to the BSA.

In late 2002, Parliament gave effect to a framework for permanent community television licensing and some of the aspects that were involved in this were an increase in the permissible levels of sponsorship inventory.  Community radio is allowed to carry 5 minutes per hour and community television is now permitted 7 minutes per hour.  It also increased the allowance of stipulated levels of sold air time to categories of programme providers in community, educational, and commercial.

After more than 9 years of trial services, the ABA, in April this year, announced the first two permanent CTV licences: the longstanding triallist in Perth known as "Access 31", and a new consortium here in Sydney called Television Sydney Limited.

In both cases the support of educational institutions, particularly universities, form part of the resourcing strategy.  But let me say, community-based programming and revenue from sponsorship and air time are the crucial elements for success.  Brisbane, Lismore, Melbourne and Adelaide await the outcome of further ABA licence allocation processes.

In 2004, in digital terms, Alston's Place in the Sun remains a pretty dark, damp and uncertain place. Even though this year's successful applicants are receiving so-called permanent community licences under Part VI of the BSA, they face a unique hurdle that I doubt would be tolerated by the more powerful exponents of the free-to-air TV lobby.  Successful CTV applicants receive a 5-year renewable community broadcasting licence but, instead of being welded to a matching apparatus licence for use of UHF analogue spectrum, they come with apparatus licences that have a sunset date of December 2006.  So, obviously all bets are off until someone, somehow, in Government, can shed some light on the future - post-the-moratorium - and to work out what to do with the notion, let alone the reality, of datacasting.

So as the peak industry body for community broadcasting - and obviously that's radio and television - the CBAA has always sought to maintain a strong policy position on CTV services.

We made a substantial submission in 2001 to DCITA's last review and we have been heavily involved in the struggle for permanent licensing and the development of appropriate self-regulatory codes of practice.  Our standing position calls for:

  • CTV to continue on analogue until the universal switch-off date for the industry (whenever that may be);
  • the roll-out of new additional services;
  • the reservation of a full 7 megahertz channel, (which you have been reminded today allows for between 19.3 and 23 megabytes per second of data carriage); and
  • a statutory carriage obligation on digital facilities operators.
Although we don't - this time around - have a specific review for the digital carriage of CTV, we have an obvious interest in the next phase of reviews, particularly those focusing on the post-moratorium landscape and the potential re-purposing of datacasting channels.

I do not want to finish my talk today leaving anybody with the impression that things are glum for community television.  They are not.  Business models have developed under some unconscionably unstable policy settings to prove that viable, not-for-profit community access services can be grown and maintained, with no Government financial assistance.  OzTAM figures, across 5 capital cities, last December indicated cumulative audience figures in excess of 3.4 million.

Community television is culturally diverse, quirky, unpredictable, enormously beneficial in social and cultural terms and moreover, here to stay.

Barry Melville, General Manager, Community Broadcasting Association of Australia

Mark has invited me to speak about community television's place in the sun.  That's a particular term or phrase which will, if you haven't heard it before, have more significance after I have spoken.

What's missing from the envisaged reviews is closure in terms of future regulatory arrangements for the digital carriage of community broadcasting; although we have been around the block a few times before, as you are about to discover.

In community broadcasting, we are no strangers to the odd review or two. In the area of community television, the whole schebang kicked off with a Lower House parliamentary review commissioned by the Labor Party back in 1992. This led to the sixth high powered television channel being reserved for community and educational purposes until a final decision was made on its use.  The community television trial, as it became known, commenced in 1994 using an open narrow-cast licence. 

In 1996 the ABA conducted a Ministerially-directed review into the uses of the sixth channel, which recommended: "If put to any use at all, the sixth channel should be used for community access television as the most socio-economic benefits presently appear likely to follow from this use."

In 1998 the then Minister, Senator Alston, made his promise that at last community TV would have 'its place in the sun' - his words.

The Minister made the commitment that community television would be guaranteed free access to the spectrum needed to broadcast at least one standard definition channel.  Bear in mind this is 1998, and there was lots of argumentation about what one standard definition channel would require in terms of bandwidth.

When the Television Broadcasting Services (Digital Conversion Act) of 1998 came along, it required a review into "the regulatory arrangements that should apply to the digital transmission of a community television service free of charge using spectrum in the broadcasting services bands allocated for use for the provision of datacasting services."

This review which, for today's purposes, we can call The Place in the Sun Review, came and went and in fact made no substantive recommendations affecting the future of community television services, digital or otherwise.  In fact digital television policy and planning proceeded apace toward other broadcasting industry outcomes, and for a while these processes seemed to be actively disrupting any opportunity for community television to proceed beyond the initial analogue trial phase.

Examples of these disruptions include the Minister, in May 1999, revoking the reservation of the sixth channel nationally for community educational purposes, leaving in place a reserved channel only in the six incumbent markets, which were and are: Brisbane, Lismore, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth.

By the way, two other trial services lost their licences in 1999 and they were Hobart and Bendigo.  So we did actually have hopes of a more extensive regional roll out of services at one stage.

Very quickly, the digital channel planning process ate up all of the spare channels, including UHF channels like 31 and 54, that had previously been part of a national blanket reservation.

Then in May 2001, Senator Alston announced the cancellation of the datacasting spectrum auctions; ostensibly due to inadequate competition within the market and potential problems with the licence term.  DCITA then conducted a departmental review, culminating in June 2002, into the digital transmission of community television which ultimately made no substantive recommendations about the medium- to long-term prospects for digital carriage, but did lead to some very welcome amendments to the BSA.

In late 2002, Parliament gave effect to a framework for permanent community television licensing and some of the aspects that were involved in this were an increase in the permissible levels of sponsorship inventory.  Community radio is allowed to carry 5 minutes per hour and community television is now permitted 7 minutes per hour.  It also increased the allowance of stipulated levels of sold air time to categories of programme providers in community, educational, and commercial.

After more than 9 years of trial services, the ABA, in April this year, announced the first two permanent CTV licences: the longstanding triallist in Perth known as "Access 31", and a new consortium here in Sydney called Television Sydney Limited.

In both cases the support of educational institutions, particularly universities, form part of the resourcing strategy.  But let me say, community-based programming and revenue from sponsorship and air time are the crucial elements for success.  Brisbane, Lismore, Melbourne and Adelaide await the outcome of further ABA licence allocation processes.

In 2004, in digital terms, Alston's Place in the Sun remains a pretty dark, damp and uncertain place. Even though this year's successful applicants are receiving so-called permanent community licences under Part VI of the BSA, they face a unique hurdle that I doubt would be tolerated by the more powerful exponents of the free-to-air TV lobby.  Successful CTV applicants receive a 5-year renewable community broadcasting licence but, instead of being welded to a matching apparatus licence for use of UHF analogue spectrum, they come with apparatus licences that have a sunset date of December 2006.  So, obviously all bets are off until someone, somehow, in Government, can shed some light on the future - post-the-moratorium - and to work out what to do with the notion, let alone the reality, of datacasting.

So as the peak industry body for community broadcasting - and obviously that's radio and television - the CBAA has always sought to maintain a strong policy position on CTV services.

We made a substantial submission in 2001 to DCITA's last review and we have been heavily involved in the struggle for permanent licensing and the development of appropriate self-regulatory codes of practice.  Our standing position calls for:

  • CTV to continue on analogue until the universal switch-off date for the industry (whenever that may be);
  • the roll-out of new additional services;
  • the reservation of a full 7 megahertz channel, (which you have been reminded today allows for between 19.3 and 23 megabytes per second of data carriage); and
  • a statutory carriage obligation on digital facilities operators.

Although we don't - this time around - have a specific review for the digital carriage of CTV, we have an obvious interest in the next phase of reviews, particularly those focusing on the post-moratorium landscape and the potential re-purposing of datacasting channels.

I do not want to finish my talk today leaving anybody with the impression that things are glum for community television.  They are not.  Business models have developed under some unconscionably unstable policy settings to prove that viable, not-for-profit community access services can be grown and maintained, with no Government financial assistance.  OzTAM figures, across 5 capital cities, last December indicated cumulative audience figures in excess of 3.4 million.

Community television is culturally diverse, quirky, unpredictable, enormously beneficial in social and cultural terms and moreover, here to stay.

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