Digital Forty Four

Digital Forty Four

Digital Forty Four
Owned by Broadcast Australia
Country Australia Australia
Broadcast area Sydney
Availability
Terrestrial
SD Digital Digital multiplex on UHF 35
Free-to-air television guide

Digital Forty Four was a Sydney-only trial datacasting service that was licensed by the Australian Broadcasting Authority (now the Australian Communications and Media Authority) in March 2004 for an initial three-year run until late 2007. The license was extended on several occasions past 2007, however on 29 January 2010 it was announced that Broadcast Australia's datacasting licence for Digital 44 would not be extended past 30 April 2010.[1]

Shortly prior to the end of the Digital 44 service in March 2010, community television station TVS began transmission on the service. At midnight on 30 April 2010 all the other services from Digital 44 ceased broadcasting.

The services provided at various times during its six years of operation have included a television guide for Digital Television (DVB), a community service channel providing information on road, weather and surf conditions, with live broadcasts every fifteen minutes, the Australian Christian Channel (ACC), EXPO shopping channel, National Indigenous Television (NITV), Teachers TV information channel and live broadcasts of the meetings of the Australian Parliament, with audio-video coverage of the House of Representatives and Senate.

Channel Lineup

Under conditions associated with the datacasting licence, channels on the Digital 44 service had to be either text based or narrowcast services. Entertainment programming was not allowed on the service, however some programming on the Australian Christian Channel was shown in a reduced screen format with text content around it, as that satisfied the datacast requirement.

LCN Service Notes:
04 Free-to-air television guide
40 NITV
41 ABC News & Weather Text only
42 D44 Homepage
44 TVS
45 Teachers' TV Australia
46 Australian Christian Channel
47 Australian Federal Parliament - House Of Representatives
48 Australian Federal Parliament - Senate
49 Expo Shopping Network

Former Channels

As it was a long term trial, many channels that started on the service did not continue until the cessation of broadcasts, they include Channel NSW, a station that included live traffic as well as government announcements, a Maquarie channel showing financial information and a TAB channel showing betting odds.

Other channels included,

Legacy

The ACMA decided in closing the service that it was unlikely that datacast services would come to auction in the near future, and decided continuing the trial was unnecessary for that reason. NITV, which gained coverage on the service, considered the closure of the service a blow to its chances of gaining permanent spectrum for the service, and put the long term viability of the service into question.

Most of the other channels on Digital 44 are available unencrypted on satellite or via online streaming.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Sydney datacasting trial to end". ACMA media release 16/2010 – 29 January. Retrieved 1 February 2009.
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