Community TV gets six month reprieve

Australia’s community TV stations won’t be going dim as expected on December 31, after being given a final six-month stay of execution.

The stations were informed in 2014 by the Federal Government that they needed to go online, as it needed the spectrum space to sell to commercial, free-to-air channels or subscription TV providers.

But Arts Minister Mitch Fifield has now announced, “Following consultation with CTV broadcasters operating terrestrial services, the Government will allow these services that wish to take up the extension until the end of June 2017 to transition to an online environment.”

The five stations are Melbourne/Geelong’s C31, TVS Sydney, Brisbane’s 31 Digital, Adelaide’s Channel 44 and Perth’s West TV, all linked by the Australian Community Television Alliance.

A breeding ground for presenters, producers, sound techs, directors, scriptwriters and music industry contributors, community TV has staged its own Antenna awards since 2004.

Names that came up through the ranks to mainstream success are Waleed Aly, Rove McManus, Hamish & Andy, Tommy Little, Dave Thornton and Jo Stanley.

According to surveys conducted in 2001 to 2004, community TV has an audience of 5 million.

The stations present 90 non-mainstream shows a week produced by community television volunteers and independent television makers.

C31, transmitting from Mt. Dandenong, states on its website: “C31 provides access and representation to the many diverse communities within Victoria. You can find faces, voices and issues which are not present in mainstream television.”

One of C31’s flagship music shows is Wrokdown, during which Australian singer Wendy Stapleton interviews musicians and industry executives from the ‘60s and ‘70s about their careers.

Channel operator the Melbourne Community Television Consortium will announce an update of its plans shortly.

It was not immediately known if original plans to bow out with a marathon 144-hour live broadcast featuring former and current names will still go ahead as planned.