Community Television (Australia)

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Australia's Community Television is a form of Citizen media much like Public Access Television in the United States and the Community Channel in Canada. In principle, community television is another model of facilitating media production and involvement by private citizens.

[edit] Australia

Australia has a special type of broadcasting licence for community television. Holders of such a licence must conform to various rules, primarily relating to advertising and to a lesser extent, program content.

In the strictist sense of the term, community TV is these stations and their programming. However, there are a number of stations and distributers that release the same sort of content (often exactly the same programs) with other types of licence, or none at all.

The TV stations with community licences are located in Adelaide, Brisbane, Lismore, Melbourne, Mount Gambier, Perth, Sydney and nearly 100 remote Aboriginal communities. In Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Sydney and the remote communities, the stations have ongoing licences. The stations in Adelaide, Lismore and Mount Gambier currently have trial licences.

Other stations with different licences include Aurora Community TV, Australian Multicultural TV, Ballarat Community Cable TV, Channel NSW (in Sydney), ChannelVision (in Canberra), Geelong's Own Television Channel, GTV (in Broome), Imparja Info Channel, iTV64 (in Darwin), Satellite Community TV, TV Norfolk (on Norfolk Island) and Westlink. Other distributers of this style of programming include YouTube and Google Video.

Community television programs are most often made by amateurs about their own communities and special and diverse interests. In other cases, companies produce the programs.

Community television is represented by the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia (CBAA), the national peak body for community television and community radio. They cooperate with the National Ethnic and Multicultural Broadcasters Council (NEMBC), the National Youth Media Network (NYMN) and the Australian Indigenous Communications Association (AICA).

Community TV is funded by a mixture of sponsorship, subscriptions and donations, membership fees, grants, merchandise sales and sale of air time to program providers. It receives no regular national government funding. Many programs are paid for by the producers themselves.

The audience reach is over 3 million Australians, based on surveys, research and ratings (2001-2004) [1].

The National Community Television Awards - the Antennas - were established in 2004 and have been announced in each of the subsequent years. [1] Melbourne Community Television Consortium and Community Broadcasting Association of Australia Information Kit: Community Television in Australia 2004

A special emphasis of community TV is the provision of programs in an increasing range of community languages and about community cultures. Over twenty languages groups, many from newly migrant and refugee communities, are broadcast regular by the CTV stations.

Australian Community Television producers are often also producers of other community media. Examples are: SYN and Arts Community Television.