Australian Media: Difference between revisions

Basically, there are four kinds of television channels: public, commercial, community and pay TV.

 

 

* '''[[The ABC]]''' has a wide variety of programmes in order to fulfill its obligations as a public broadcaster, with news, current affairs, religious services and programming for indigenous Australians and rural viewers. Although it has a low budget, it has created many quality programmes, such as ''Four Corners'', ''[[Good Game]]'', ''Collectors'', ''[[Kath and Kim]]'', ''[[The Chaser's War on Everything]]'', ''Gardening Australia'', ''[[Spicks and Specks]]'', ''[[Media Watch]]'', ''[[The Gruen Transfer]]'' and many children's programmes; it's generally held in high esteem for the quality of its journalism and news programs. The ABC also imports popular programmes from Britain, like ''[[Doctor Who]]'', ''[[Life On Mars]]'', ''[[The Bill]]'' and Channel 4 comedies. ABC has four TV channels broadcast in digital, available nationwide: three are in Standard Definition, one in High Definition. The broadcasting type and LCN for each channel is noted below in brackets (one has multiple LCNs).

** '''ABC1''' (SD, 2 & 21), a general channel.

** '''[[ABC 3]]''' (SD, 23), Australia's only free-to-air channel exclusively for kids' shows.

** '''ABC News 24''' (HD, 24), [[Overly Narrow Superlative|Australia's most watched]] [[24-Hour News Networks|24 hour news channel]].

* '''[[SBS]]''' was originally created to provide programming to Australians who have English as a second language. However, due to budget concerns, the problems catering to such a broad audience, and the rise of foreign-language pay TV services, the SBS has had to supplement its income through advertising. These days, SBS has a range of alternative programmes, including documentaries (both from Australia and the overseas market), sports (''especially'' [[The Beautiful Game|soccer]]), foreign-language series such as Austria's ''Inspector Rex'' and Denmark's ''Unit One'', foreign language films, a block of American imports such as ''[[Big Love]]'' and ''[[Boardwalk Empire]]'', foreign news programs, and a tradition of at least one hour of sex-related viewing, documentary or [[Porn with Plot|other]][[Porn Without Plot|wise]], every Friday night. (This mix has led to the [[Memetic Mutation|commonly-used]] [[Fun with Acronyms|backronym]] "Sex and Bloody Soccer".) SBS has two channels broadcast in digital available nationwide, and is the only network to still simulcast its main channel in Standard and High Definition. The broadcasting type and LCN for each channel is noted below in brackets (one has multiple LCNs).

** '''SBS ONE''' (SD, 3 & 33 & 34;<ref>The latter two are placeholders for future channels; they are labelled "SBS 3" and "SBS 4" but currently just run duplicate broadcasts of SBS ONE</ref> HD, 30), a "general" channel (if it can be called that), also broadcast in analogue on channel 28.

* '''NITV''', Australia's National Indigenous Television service, [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|airs national content for Indigenous Australians]]. It was launched in July 2007. Its programming is funded by the Commonwealth of Australia, produced in Sydney and broadcast over Imparja Television's existing satellite capacity—which is ''not'' nationwide. Used to be broadcast in Sydney on free-to-air digital channel 40, but this ended when community station Channel 31 (see below) began broadcasting. Plans have been floated to merge NITV with SBS.

 

 

There are three commercial networks in Australia, called Seven, Nine and Ten. Each one broadcasts three channels—two in Standard Definition and one in High Definition, which is the legal limit. The "main" eponymous channels are all broadcast in SD, to ensure maximum viewers—they used to be simulcast in HD until certain legal restrictions against commercial-network multichannelling were relaxed. The broadcast type and LCN of each channel is indicated below in brackets (some channels have multiple LCNs).

** '''7TWO''' (SD, 72), which primarily acts as a sort of spill-over channel for programs that weren't popular enough to show on Seven or weren't getting enough ratings: both ''[[Lost]]'' and ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'' got demoted to 7TWO for their final seasons, for example.

** '''7mate''' (HD, 73), the newest channel, which is specifically targeted towards blokes. Lots of comedies and shows with stuff blowing up in them.

** '''Nine''' (SD, 9), a general channel also broadcast in analogue on Channel 9.

** '''GO!''' (SD, 99), supposedly a "youth-oriented channel". In practice, it acts as a spill-over channel much like 7TWO, as Nine is notoriously [[Screwed by the Network|cancel-happy]] with new programming; the two are virtually synonymous. In the daytime tends to show old programs from its archives—sitcoms, cartoons, movies, and (interestingly) ''[[Star Trek]]''.

Due to media ownership laws, the networks are represented by different services outside Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, such as Prime, which broadcasts Channel Seven's programming in rural Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria and, for some strange reason, in Canberra. In some areas, this is little more than a live feed from Sydney or Melbourne with half-an-hour of local news thrown in, while others add in more local programming. However, some sparsely populated markets such as in central Australia are served by only two channels, which choose between programmes from the five networks.

 

 

Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth each have a community television service on channel 31, which caters for local content and community services. The popularity of Channel 31 varies from city to city: in Adelaide, the local channel is usually ignored (except in other community media), while the service in Melbourne has gained wide popularity and has almost become a sixth major channel. Despite this, Channel 31 was not able to broadcast in digital (being denied a digital broadcast license) until 2010. Because the digital channel 31 already belongs to SBS (which itself is because the digital channel 28 belongs to ABC), Channel 31 paradoxically broadcasts on the digital channel 44.

** '''West TV''', broadcast in Perth (Western Australia).

 

 

Unlike in the United States, pay TV is not popular in Australia, with only a quarter or so of the population having a pay TV service. The largest pay TV provider is Foxtel, which transmits on cable and satellite to the capital cities and throughout Western Australia, and owns the majority of Australia's pay TV channels, including Fox Sports, and FOX8, the most popular pay TV channel. Foxtel transmits its cable service via Telstra hybrid fibre-coaxial cable into the Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth areas. Foxtel also transmits its satellite service into these cities as well as the state of Western Australia and the cities of Newcastle, Geelong Victoria, Central Coast, Canberra and Gold Coast. Anywhere else is covered by Austar. As well as the major services, there are also foreign language pay TV services such as Ubi World, which broadcasts in languages such as Greek, Chinese, Arabic and Italian.