Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I was very honoured to participate in this House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications, Information Technology and the Arts inquiry into community broadcasting. This Community television: options for digital broadcasting report is a significant piece of work. In 2005 an inquiry into the take-up of digital TV was undertaken by this same committee. During that inquiry the committee learnt of the plight, quite frankly, that community television was in at that stage and how it would be impacted by the digitisation of free-to-air television transmission.

In 2006 an inquiry was launched by this committee into community broadcasting issues. It was decided during that inquiry that a report be produced by the committee that addressed the issues confronting community television in respect of the use of spectrum and the impact on their businesses. The recent announcement by the government concerning the proposed use of previously unused digital channels has concerned the community television sector about the options they will have as they move into digital transmission. This committee attempted to drill into that with a view to establishing the most realistic options that could be reasonably expected by government for community television. The government has on a number of occasions announced its commitment to community television.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Just before the sitting was suspended I was indicating that the government has for some time stated that it had an ongoing commitment to community television. As a matter of fact, former Senator Alston, in his second reading speech on the Television Broadcasting Services (Digital Conversion) Bill 1998, indicated:

The government will also continue to support community broadcasters and will facilitate the transmission of community television broadcast services, free of charge, in ... datacasting services.

With time, and also with the government’s production in March 2006 of the digital action plan, time is now rapidly running out for the digitising of broadcast services for community television. During the inquiry the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia indicated that, without making provision for community television here and now, the financial viability of ensuring digitised access for community television will be threatened. Therefore, it should be a matter of some priority for the government.

At this stage community television is only broadcasting by way of analog signal, even though 23 per cent of Australian households currently have already converted to digital transmission. According to the Community Broadcasting Association, there are now in the vicinity of 40,000 set-top boxes being sold per month, which is further enhancing people’s move to digitisation. It is community television’s on-air time which allows it to attract sponsorship. Therefore, if it is, in effect, losing its audience reach during this simulcast period while commercial television has already been transmitting, and the audience is moving to digital television, it is fair to conclude that community television will increasingly be missing out on its audience share.

That is why it is so crucial for this committee to look specifically at the issues facing community broadcasters. As I say, there is a need to keep them viable so that they can keep fulfilling a need within society, and to be able to do so on the basis that they are not commercial stations and do not have the ability to fairly make the same adjustment that commercial television can make.

A set of recommendations is made in this report. The committee is very much of the opinion that simply to maintain access for community television to a reserve channel of a licensee might be appropriate for the purpose of simulcast. Unless community TV has the same ability as free-to-air commercials—that is, the ability to simulcast—they will continue to lose their share of audience. That is why the committee took the view that the government’s digital action plan, which suggests that a long-term commercial arrangement should be entered into with the purchaser of the reserve licence, would be detrimental to the long-term future of community television. The committee was very strong in this view and recommended that the Australian government sell the unreserved channel which is now known as channel A, with an obligation on the new licensee to carry commercial television during the simulcast period. Such carriage should be at no cost to the community TV sector during the period of that simulcast period.

Any significant delays that will occur in the sale of that channel A would again amount to a loss of audience and therefore revenue for the community TV sector. The committee therefore recommends that a sale of licence A should be completed by no later than 1 January 2008; otherwise, penalties should apply to the new licensee in their ability to carry community TV.

However, in the event that the government is not able to sell licence A and therefore not able to accommodate the community TV sector in terms of broadcasting, the committee is of the view that a temporary arrangement should be made for the use of that spectrum within the licence A to be carried by a national broadcaster for the specific purpose of broadcasting community TV only during the period of simulcast. This is an attempt by the committee to make sure that community television has a future in this country and it is to ensure that they can participate and properly be able to join digital transmission without losing audience share. I would suggest that this is in everybody’s interest. It certainly accommodates what the government has, since 1998, been saying it is committed to.

I say in concluding that this is a unanimous report by the committee. It has taken the committee into various aspects of community television. It is one which genuinely recognises the need for and future of community television in this country. I commend the chair, the member for Lindsay, and the committee. The staff of the committee I think have put together a report which truly reflects a bipartisan position in this matter.

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