Community TV will be forced to move online by the end of 2015. Broadcasters are pessimistic that their shows will work online, and fear a crucial information source and training ground will be lost.
By GABRIELLA JOUSTRA
Muddy 4x4s race across the screen to the sound of dramatic rock music. The tread of huge tyres cling on rocks as the car climbs its way over boulders. A green four-wheel-drive bounces as it hits the ground.
4wd TV, the only TV program covering Australian 4x4 off-road motorsport, is freely available on community television across Australia.
For Simon Christie, producer of 4wd TV, four-wheel-driving started as a hobby.
“I wanted to take the hobby to the next level and get more exposure for my sponsors and to also support and promote the 4WD community and industry,” he said. So he took the idea to Channel 31 in Melbourne.
Ten years later, the business turns over half a million dollars a year, is his main source of income and employs seven to eight people full-time.
However, the future of 4wd TV and all community television programs are in jeopardy.
On September 10, Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced that the spectrum license for community television would only be extended to December 31, 2015, giving community television just over a year to move online. Spectrum or radiofrequency is what is used to broadcast TV, radio and many other wireless transmissions.
Mr Turnbull made the announcement in a keynote address to the Australian Communications and Media Authority, where he outlined his plan for the future of spectrum.
“With the completion of the digital switchover, advances in compression standards and Australians increasingly accessing content that doesn’t require spectrum – such as cable and over-the-top services via the internet – the Government considers that it is timely to recast the current broadcasting spectrum policy framework to ensure it is fit-for-purpose for the next wave of innovation in the media sector,” he said.
Mr Turnbull is encouraging broadcasters to switch to MPEG-4, a format that compresses data, so the spectrum is used efficiently and allows more channels to be aired.
To assist in the changeover he plans to use the "sixth channel" spectrum – a channel that is mostly unused, except for community TV in the mainland state capital cities – to help testing and migration onto MPEG-4.
One of the reasons Mr Turnbull uses to justify the move from spectrum to the internet is low viewer turn-out. He says average audience numbers across Australia during prime time is 6000, with some channels attracting only 1000 viewers.
“Given the small number of services and audiences, their capacity to serve a wide range of different community interest groups is limited,” he said.
At the moment the broadcast range of community television is limited to the cities in which they are based but, by moving it to the internet, Mr Turnbull said community TV channels would be able to reach a far wider audience and increase viewer numbers.
Fiona MacKenzie, producer of Far Out Films – a group of filmmakers who help kids make films – said the transition from TV to YouTube would not be easy, since each attracted different audiences. Shows now on community TV were unlikely to be popular on YouTube.
“Television content is in specific formats [while YouTube] is personality driven,” she said.
This sentiment is mirrored in The Age article “A guy walks into a bar and kills community TV…” by David Green of Channel 31’s television program 31 Questions.
This year an episode of the show was broadcast to an audience of 46,000 people on Channel 31. The same episode was uploaded onto YouTube and has since been watched just 142 times.
While Ms MacKenzie said she thought community television was vital, she said her own daughter had not turned on their TV in months.
Australian Bureau of Statics figures show that last year 86 per cent of 15-17-year-olds used the internet to listen to music or to watch videos or movies, detailing a shift in content consumption trends in younger generations.
However, among adults, TV is still the dominant screen-based leisure activity. Adults spent an average of 13 hours a week watching TV compared to five hours on the computer.
Moving community television online would have a bigger effect on older viewers, given that more than half of people aged 65 or over did not access the internet at all in 2012-13. At the same time, the average time spent watching TV for people aged 75 or over was more than 19 hours a week.
University student Samantha Caldone says that while free-to-air TV is free, not everyone has access to the internet.
“The threat to shift community TV to internet is absurd because Malcolm Turnbull’s views that everyone has the internet is incorrect, you have to pay for the internet.”
Putting community TV online would alienate those without computers, the technologically ignorant and those who cannot afford an internet connection fast enough to stream TV.
Ms Caldone produces 1700, a youth based music program on Channel 31 organised by Student Youth Network Inc (SYN) and she said most viewers would be affected.
“The reality is people watch free-to-air TV and watch Channel 31 because they’re at home … if you have to go online to seek out to watch Channel 31 then you have to already know about it, you have to physically go out there and do it,” she said.
Content producers like 4wd TV make money from sponsorship and advertising. However, without audience numbers, Mr Christie says, “none of my sponsors would be interested in supporting it, so I’d lose all my revenue".
"You basically lose all your viewers overnight … It’s just not that viable, functional or effective option. It’s an absolute joke to even think that it is an option.”
Important training ground
Students would also suffer. Ms Caldone is a student at Latrobe University in Media Studies and Law. She joined SYN to learn broadcast skills.
Every Wednesday night she runs between the studio and the control room, using skills she learned by volunteering on community TV. For her, this is a foot in the door of commercial television.
Crew member Stacey Carter stands outside the studio watching the wall-mounted TV screen, which is permanently tuned to C31. On screen are images of her and a classmate baking cookies.
Ms Carter is about to finish her Diploma of Screen and Media (radio and TV) after a year at Holmesglen Institute and wants to be an actor. She is riveted by the television, talking about her classmates on screen and the hours they spent together making these episodes.
Not only is her course work aired on Channel 31, but she is part of the 1700 production crew. She said working on 1700 had helped her learn skills she would not otherwise have learnt.
Ms Caldone said cutting Channel 31 would mean “Melbourne’s underground culture will be lost”.
“I don’t think the Government understands how vital community TV actually is and once they cut it and force it to be streamed purely online it will be too late, too late to fix it,” she said.
Mr Turnbull has a different view. With the growth of the internet and internet use, he said, the new training ground, broadcaster and money-maker was YouTube.
“Luckily for today's would-be Roves [TV host Rove McManus], a new generation of performers, presenters and entrepreneurs have found a start on the internet,” he said.
He cited YouTube sensations The Bondi Hipsters, who now have a show on ABC2, and Natalie Tran, who is making a living from producing content for Communitychannel on YouTube.
Mr Turnbull said sponsorship would also be less restrictive. Currently community TV is allowed a maximum of seven minutes of sponsorship an hour. By moving online they are freed from the Broadcasting Services Act’s restrictions on advertising and sponsorship.
“Streamed community-based video services would be able to carry any advertising they choose,” he said.
While community TV members are pessimistic about the move online – saying it means the end of community TV, to training,community voice and businesses – Mr Turnbull took an optimistic view. The move online would give greater reach and more freedom to broadcasters, he said.
If you want to support community television, go to Commit to Community Television to sign the petition.