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Access 31 to decide on future next Thursday

Members of Perth’s community station Access 31 today put off a decision on winding up the station until Thursday.

The plight of Access 31 symbolises the difficulty of community broadcasters, struggling to find funding and assistance in moving from analogue to digital television. Opposition communications spokesman Bruce Billson has previously said the government had failed to provide adequate support to help community television stations make the switch.

According to a statement of solvency filed with the Australian Securities and Investment Commission earlier this month Access 31 has debts of $721,857 and only $17,164 cash.

The meeting is believed to have been told state and federal funding had dried up and the only possible solution was sourcing private funding.

Access 31 has been broadcasting from its Belmont studios since 1999.

Source: news.com.au

5 Responses

  1. TVAU is right, the government has bent over backwards to accommodate the commercial networks in the digital switchover, while the community channels have been abandoned.

    It’s not going to break the bank for the govt to cough up enough cash to get the community channels broadcasting in digital, and if there isn’t a spare channel for them to simulcast on both analogue and digital, perhaps they should abandon analogue and just make the switch straight to digital.

  2. fangera, of course the government should pay for it. The government has given handouts, concessions and free digital spectrum to the national broadcasters AND the commercial stations to help them convert to digital. It is only fair that they extend that level of support to community TV when so far those stations have been offered no conversion strategy, no spectrum and no funding.

  3. So what is ch9 & ch10 excuse, here in the widebay we still don’t have HDTV 24/7 from them, only a few shows on both in HD and the ad breaks are the HD “Test reel”, we don’t even get the additional shows 10HD is airing like Smallville and Veronica Mars!

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