Dear Mr Murphy

Petition about digital television reception in Miriam Vale and district, Qld

Thank you for your letter dated 4 July 2011 in your capacity as Chair of the Standing Committee on Petitions. In your letter you referred to a petition from the residents and citizens of Miriam Vale and Districts, Queensland, about digital television reception in those areas. You sought my response to the petition by way of a written response to the Committee.

The petition asked the House to 'ensure that the Miriam Vale community has access, free of charge, to quality digital TV and to ensure the services provided are local and not relayed from a satellite. The community wishes to access its TV signal via terrestrial means via a ground based transmitter.'

The petition also drew the attention of the House to 'the unsatisfactory position with regard to the changeover from analog TV to digital TV. The community has a high number of retired residents who are unable to sustain the cost of transition.'

Digital television services in Miriam Vale

I am advised by the Digital Switchover Taskforce that most viewers in the Miriam Vale area are currently likely to be receiving their analog television services from the Miriam Vale/Bororen transmission site, which is located about 10 kilometres east of Miriam Vale. I understand that the three commercial services and the SBS are provided from this site as self help retransmissions, and the ABC provides its services in both analog and digital.

In January 2010 I announced that under an agreement between the government and commercial television broadcasters across Australia, broadcasters will upgrade a number of existing regional analog self help transmission sites to operate in digital.

These site upgrades are being carried out by broadcasters. No funding is being provided by the government for the upgrades and therefore the choice of sites to be converted is a matter for the broadcasters to determine. I am advised that broadcasters have decided not to upgrade the Miriam Vale/Bororen site to digital.

The Australian government understands the importance of free-to-air television to people living in regional Australia and has introduced policy and legislative measures to maximise viewers' access to digital television services. Providing equal television services to viewers throughout Australia is a central feature of the government's digital switchover program.

To ensure that viewers in areas where there is poor or no access to terrestrially broadcast digital television services, such as in the Miriam Vale area, the government is investing $375.4 million over twelve years to provide transmission of digital free-to-air services from a new satellite platform known as the Viewer Access Satellite Television (VAST) service.

By providing funding for the VAST service, the government aims to ensure that anyone in Australia who cannot receive digital terrestrial services will have access to a reliable and professionally operated free to air service, now and into the future.

The VAST service is a first class direct to home digital television satellite service which covers all of Australia. It provides technically high quality viewing of the same number of television channels that are available in capital cities in both standard definition (SD) and high definition (HD).

Viewers in the Miriam Vale area who currently receive their analog television services from the Miriam Vale/Bororen self help site, and who are not able to receive an adequate signal from another transmitter serving their area, will be eligible to move to the VAST service.

They will also be eligible to receive assistance under the government's Satellite Subsidy Scheme. More detailed information about the VAST service and the Satellite Subsidy Scheme is provided below.

Some viewers in the Miriam Vale area are likely to eligible to receive assistance to switch to digital television under the government's Household Assistance Scheme. More detailed information about this Scheme is also provided below.

Viewer Access Satellite Television service

The VAST service features channels carrying programs sourced from Southern Cross Seven, Imparj a Nine and Ten network. It also includes the main national broadcaster services, ABC1 and SBS ONE, together with SD digital channels ABC2, ABC3, SBS TWO, 7TWO, GO!, Eleven and the HD channels ABC News 24, SBS HD, 7mate, GEM, and ONE HD.

The VAST service also provides viewers with access to the local regional news services currently broadcast by the commercial broadcasters in their terrestrial licence areas.

This means that viewers in the Miriam Vale area will be able to receive WIN News from Rockhampton and Bundaberg, Seven Local News from Rockhampton and Wide Bay, and the Southern Cross Queensland news. The regional news services are provided through dedicated news channels.

The news services of the national broadcasters, the ABC and SBS, are also provided. ABC news is available through ABC 1 on a state basis, so Miriam Vale viewers will receive ABC1 Queensland.

Satellite Subsidy Scheme

Viewers moving to the VAST service because they live in areas served by analog self help sites that are not being upgraded to digital, and who are not able to receive an adequate signal from another transmitter serving their area, will be eligible to receive assistance under the government's Satellite Subsidy Scheme (the scheme).

Under the scheme, the government will contract with satellite installers experienced in domestic satellite dish installation to provide a subsidised installation package to these households. Eligible households will pay a predetermined co-payment to the installer which is fixed as part of the contract between the government and the service providers. Households will be clearly advised of this co-payment in advance of the installations taking place. In regional Queensland the household co-payment is $220.

To ensure a flat co-payment across large areas, the government provides a subsidy of $400 per household in defined 'standard' areas, $550 per household in defined 'very remote' areas and $700 in defined 'far north tropical' areas.

The scheme pays for the conversion of one television set per household to the VAST service. People with more than one television who move to the VAST service will have to install additional cabling and set-top boxes at their own expense, although the same dish can be used for a number of televisions. This is not substantially different to what people with more than one television in metropolitan and regional areas throughout Australia who receive their television services terrestrially will have to do to receive digital television.

Applications for assistance under the scheme opened for Queensland on 30 May 2011 and they close on 2 October 2011. Households in the Miriam Vale area may apply for assistance under the scheme online by going to www.digitalready.gov.au and then scrolling down the page to 'How to apply' under `Govt assistance'/'Satellite Subsidy Scheme'. Viewers may also apply by calling the Digital Ready Information Line.

The situation for tenants in state or local government housing is that provided they are Australian citizens or permanent residents aged 18 years or over, either the owner/landlord or the tenant of the dwelling where the satellite television equipment is to be installed is eligible to apply for the scheme.

Tenants opting into the scheme on behalf of their landlord will need to have received their landlord's permission for the installation to be carried out. There will only be one installation per dwelling.

Once an applicant (either the landlord/owner or tenant) has applied successfully for the scheme, their dwelling will not be eligible to apply for additional subsidies, and the applicant will be required to pay the household contribution. Tenants and landlords will also need to agree about ultimate ownership of the equipment installed.

The government has funded the scheme in recognition of the investment made by households in communities with analog self-help terrestrial retransmission facilities in establishing and running their own analog self-help towers, and to ensure that the cost for households to install VAST reception equipment is minimised.

The scheme is restricted to householders who live in or own an eligible residential dwelling, and is not available to non-residential dwellings. Places of business are excluded from the scheme as they are not residential premises. The government is not subsidising the conversion of businesses to digital more generally.

People living in permanently located cabins and caravans within residential parks are eligible to participate in the Scheme as long as they can provide evidence of a valid residential park site agreement, residential park tenancy agreement or long term holiday site agreement. Permanently located caravans or cabins occupied under these types of agreements are considered to be residential dwellings for the purposes of the scheme.

Household Assistance Scheme

The Household Assistance Scheme will, at no cost to eligible households, supply, install and demonstrate a HD set top box specifically chosen to meet the needs of the elderly or those with a disability, and carry out any cabling and antenna work where necessary. Households eligible for assistance under the Household Assistance Scheme located in areas unable to receive terrestrial digital television signals will receive satellite reception equipment.

A person may be eligible for assistance under the Scheme if they live in a switchover area that is due to switch to digital, own a functioning television, do not already have access to digital television on any of the televisions they own and they receive the maximum rate of one of the following payments:

Eligible customers in the Miriam Vale area would have received a letter inviting them to participate in the Scheme in April 2011. A person eligible to receive assistance under the Household Assistance Scheme may not also receive assistance under the Satellite Subsidy Scheme.

Thank you for bringing these matters to my attention.

from the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Conroy