Jackie Kelly (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Standing Committee on Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, I present the committee’s report entitled Community television: options for digital broadcasting, together with the minutes of proceedings and evidence received by the committee.

Ordered that the report be made a parliamentary paper.

On behalf of the Standing Committee on Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, I am pleased to present this report on the options for digital broadcasting for community television in Australia. This is the first report for the inquiry into community broadcasting.

The last decade has seen tremendous growth in the community television sector. If this growth is repeated in the next decade then enormous diversity will be added to Australia’s media. There is no doubt that the community television sector is extremely valuable in our media landscape. The sector is the incubator of diverse and innovative programming and is essentially the training ground for the commercial and national broadcasters.

The sector faces a significant hurdle, and that is access to digital broadcasting. Community television currently only broadcasts in analog and so cannot be seen by those 20 per cent of Australians who have purchased digital television receivers. The logical conclusion of this scenario is that by the time 90 per cent of Australians have bought digital receivers and are watching only through digital spectrum, and analog is switched off, no-one will be watching community television. Without the opportunity to simulcast, the sector will have to start its growth again sometime after 2012.

This report has examined the options for ensuring the transition to digital for community television in Australia, including the opportunity to simulcast, and takes into account the financial burden of conversion and simulcast for community television broadcasters. I would like to thank the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts and her office for their close communication with our committee. They have signalled their intention to sell the remaining spectrum soon and indicated that it would be very helpful for this report to be brought forward at this time rather than later in the year, as the committee was intending to do, with the report on the rest of the inquiry.

The report makes five recommendations to government which encapsulate the only way community television will survive the transition to digital without having to grow from scratch after the analog switch-off. The committee recommends that the Australian government sell the unreserved channel known as licence A, with an obligation to be placed on the new licensee to carry community television during the simulcast period. Carriage during the simulcast period would be at no cost to the community television broadcast sector.

The committee understands the urgent need for a simulcast arrangement and that any significant delays will lead to loss of audience and revenue for the community sector. To avoid further loss of audience the committee recommends that the terms of sale for licence A include the condition to simulcast community television by 1 January 2008, otherwise penalties on the new licensee will apply. Should licence A not sell before the end of 2007, the committee recommends that licence A be loaned to a national broadcaster for carriage of community television during the simulcast period. As part of this arrangement the committee recommends that sufficient funding should be allocated to that national broadcaster to cover the costs of digital community television transmission during the simulcast period. To ensure that community television has a secure long-term future, the committee recommends that the Australian government, at analog switch-off, convert the spectrum band known as Channel 31 to digital and permanently allocate that channel to current and future community broadcasters.

The report makes some important funding recommendations. The community television sector will have difficulty in financing the conversion to digital and also face financial hardship having to pay for additional broadcasts during the simulcast period. The committee believes that the estimated costs for conversion of community television to digital are comparatively small compared to the substantial financial support given to the national broadcasters and regional commercial networks and the support given to the metropolitan commercial broadcasters through the loan of spectrum in the simulcast period. The committee therefore recommends that the Australian government provide funding of $6 million to the community television sector for the conversion of broadcast equipment to digital and recommends the provision of $1.7 million per year to the sector for each year of simulcast.

The recommendations outlined in the report are designed to ensure that community television is able to participate in Australia’s digital media landscape. I thank the members of the committee for their dedication to the inquiry. The members of the committee showed unified support for the report. I also thank the committee secretariat for their counsel, assistance and patience throughout the inquiry process.

In conclusion, I would like to thank the many individuals and organisations who provided evidence to this inquiry through submissions or by appearing before the committee. This report addresses only one aspect of the committee’s broader inquiry into community broadcasting. A detailed report covering the full range of issues for the entire sector will be released later this year. I commend this report to the House.

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