After ten years of broadcasting on Sydney’s UHF 31, Community Television Sydney (CTS) went to air for the last time on March 19. The day before, the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) allocated the permanent community TV licence to a new consortium, Television Sydney (TVS). Overnight, dozens of ethnic programs vanished, and even though TVS will not be prepared to broadcast until early 2005, no interim arrangement has been made to allow CTS and its communities to remain on air. How and did this happen? Why? And what happens to the ethnic broadcasters? 

The seemingly sudden decision is all about the way that the Channel 31 licence had been classified by the ABA. The licence on which CTS were broadcasting was a temporary licence. Even though their time on air extended across a decade, CTS were not a permanent licensee in the eyes of the law. 

The time for the allocation of the permanent licence came at the beginning of this year, under the new legislative framework for community television licences which was introduced in 2002. The ABA received applications from six groups, including one from the Multicultural Radio Association of Sydney (full-time ethnic radio station 2000FM). 

According to (former) ABA Chair Professor David Flint, the decision to allocate the permanent licence to TVS was made on the grounds of community participation: 

The ABA acknowledges CTS’ lengthy commitment to community television over the years. However, the Authority was of the view that TVS has demonstrated, to a higher degree than CTS, that it has established avenues through which members of the community may participate in the operations and programming of the proposed service.

This is a decision that has caused great confusion to CTS. Community participation is what CTS considers to be its first principle. Their website, which still features a program guide (see below), makes a public statement expressing their outrage. It poses a number of questions, including: 

How can [the ABA] reject the only genuine community TV group that has over 90% of all Sydney’s community television groups as a part of its membership?

CTS’s spokesperson, Salvatore Scevola, recently spoke to ABC’s Media Report. He said that CTS had legitimate grounds for expecting that the permanent licence would be allocated to them: 

Based on the common law principle that when a licensee holds a licence on a trial basis, it does so on the basis that in the event that it applies for a permanent licence, that there is some legitimate expectation that it will receive it. And that is the regime and the precedent that sits with not just community broadcasting licences but with liquor licences, with other sorts of regimes of licences. It is something that is paramount, that we have proven our commitment and our ability to satisfy the criteria.

CTS then launched an appeal of the ABA’s decision through the Federal Court of Australia, which was dismissed on April 16. The appeal’s dismissal means that no interim broadcasting arrangement will be made; CTS will not be allowed to remain on air until TVS is ready to begin broadcasting. CTS was also ordered to pay TVS’s legal costs. 

Who is Television Sydney? TVS is a consortium of educational and community institutions. The primary bodies are Educational Training Community Television (ETC TV) and Sydney Local Information Community Educational Television Incorporated (SLICE TV). ETC TV is an umbrella group for educational institutions established by the University of Western Sydney (UWS) and Metro Screen, a community multimedia resource and training centre. SLICE TV is an umbrella group for Sydney community organisations, independent program producers and individuals. 

TVS is a non-profit organisation which has already promised to provide opportunities for ethnic communities. On the TVS board is Lex Marinos, who has been described by a TVS spokesperson as “a pillar of the whole ethnic community scene in Sydney.” TVS Chair, Professor Janice Reid, says: 

TVS has a strong commitment to deliver high quality Australian content and culturally- diverse programming for all sectors of the community. We have been inundated with offers of support from many Channel 31 program providers, and others in the community who are also interested in becoming involved.

Although CTS supported a broad range of ethnic and other community broadcasters in its decade of broadcasting, criticism on this very issue has come from NEMBC member Inoke Huakau, Managing Director of 2000FM and member of the Ethnic Grants Advisory Committee. 2000FM services over 50 ethnic communities, and was one of the unsuccessful applicants for the Channel 31 permanent license. Inoke recently told Media Report that he was dissatisfied with CTS’s program content, quality of service and community contact: 

Most of the programming that is going on there [CTS] for a long time, does not address what we believe to be the main issues, or the main purpose for community television here in Sydney. What we believe is that this service is supposed to get inside the community here in Sydney or in New South Wales, rather than bringing a lot of film and things like that from overseas community. For example, we would like to see what the community, the Indian community here is like… Not the Indian community in India, for example.

TVS have just under a year to prepare themselves for operation. In the meantime, Sydney’s UHF 31 is broadcasting round-the-clock static… not even Melbourne’s famous Channel 31 fishtank to remind viewers of what’s to come. 

 

This piece was first published in The Ethnic Broadcaster Winter 2004