Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Communications, Cyber Safety and the Arts. Minister, I understand that in just 20 days time Adelaide television broadcaster Channel 44, our community television station, will be switched off when its free-to-air broadcasting licence is not renewed. The station is a training ground for South Australian television and provides valuable local content for many who do not have access to the internet, particularly older South Australians. Given that the government is yet to announce an alternative use for this broadcast spectrum, will you please allow this station to keep operating by extending its free-to-air licence?

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Cyber Safety and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her question. Since 2014 it's been the policy of this government that the radio frequency spectrum that was historically made available to community television stations in our five largest cities should be put to alternative uses, and we have supported community television to transition to delivering its content online. Community television will continue to have an important future and will continue to be a place where members of the community can make television content, but there is the capacity to generate and disseminate that content online. Already the spectrum that was being used for community television in Sydney, in Brisbane and in Perth is no longer being used for that purpose. Our government provided funding to community television in 2015 and more recently in December 2019 to support the transition online.

If we look at where some of the best Australian new talent is developing today, it's people who are producing content online and disseminating it through, for example, YouTube—people like Ozzy Man Reviews, an Australian comedian with more than 3.9 million subscribers, and Natalie Tran, who runs communitychannel and has 1.3 million subscribers. So we know that people can be very successful in generating original creative content and disseminating it online, and that's certainly where we want to see community television go. We have provided funding for that, and that's the policy the government has been committed to and has been implementing since 2014.