Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

The answer to the honourable senator's question is as follows:

Final digital TV towers and upgrades in metropolitan broadcast licence areas are yet to be implemented by the broadcasters. Therefore the final coverage of these signals is not known. Until the planning and implementation of digital services is complete, it would be inaccurate to predict numbers of dwellings with inadequate coverage using only predicted coverage of planned, but not implemented services.

Under the Satellite Subsidy Scheme (SSS), assistance is provided for eligible households to make the transition to the free-to-air Viewer Access Satellite Television (VAST) service where the local self-help tower is not being upgraded to digital. Where the broadcasters are not upgrading a self-help tower, the decision to upgrade the self-help tower rests with the licensee.

The Digital Switchover Taskforce will write to self-help licensees in metropolitan licence areas over the next month to seek a decision on whether they intend to upgrade those towers to digital or opt their community in to receive the SSS. Numbers of premises eligible for assistance under the SSS could only be determined after these decisions have been made and terrestrial broadcast coverage is known in these areas.

The self-help towers in each metropolitan licence area are listed below: