Australian Media: Difference between revisions

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

 

 

There are three public networks: the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC, not to be confused with the American [[ABC]]), the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) and National Indigenous Television (NITV), all of which are funded by the government.

* '''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).

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.