Online Encyclopedia
List of Australian television channels
Australian television channels include two government owned national networks, three major commercial capital city networks, several regional commercial networks and independent stations that are generally affiliates of the major networks, and a handful of community stations.
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Government networks
Australia has two (and a half) government owned national TV networks:
ABC TV
ABC TV (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) carries a variety of locally produced news, current affairs, and sports coverage, as well as arts and comedy. It also carries a lot of content from the United Kingdom. It has an output deal with the BBC, and has strong ties to Channel 4 (UK).
To match the commercial networks, ABC TV is often known as Channel 2 in the major capitals where it's broadcast on that frequency. However this name is never used on-air.
SBS TV
SBS (Special Broadcasting Service) was founded to cater for the rougly 1/3rd of Australians that don't speak English in the home. It's role was to complement the ABC.
SBS TV has in recent years moved away from this audience, preferring instead to target middle-class Anglo-Celtic people. Who tend to watch the ABC a lot.
SBS shows a lot of non-English movies and non-Australian government news programs. It also has a lot of English language PBS, CBC and BBC documentaries, and Comedy Central comedy. It makes a few news and current affairs programs, and commissions documentaries, movies and comedy programs. In the sporting field, it screens a lot of soccer, cycling and athletics. It also screens more opera and classical music programs than the other networks.
SBS TV was originally similar to Canada's Omni, but is now more like the UK's Channel 4, but without the popular American shows.
Imparja
The "half" is Imparja. Imparja is owned by governments of various kinds, including the federal one. Its main channel (known as Imparja) is a commercial station affiliated with Nine and Ten, but it also produces some of it's own programs. This makes it a bit like S4C. Imparja also has a second channel which is used for community broadcasting. Many indigenous commmunity broadcasters broadcast Imparja developed material, and content also flows back the other way.
NIRS (the peak Indigenous radio group), is lobbying the government to start a new, nationwide Indigenous TV network. No major political party has championed this cause however. Some have argued that all that would be required is the existing system plus some digital terrestrial carriage on the SBS mux, Pay TV carriage, and more funding for local Indigenous media groups.
Commercial stations
There are several commercial broadcasting companies:
- Imparja
- NBN Television
- Prime Television
- Publishing and Broadcasting Limited
- Seven Network
- Southern Cross Broadcasting
- Sunraysia Television
- Ten Network
- WIN Television
Ownership and network affiliation do not necessarily align; see the table below for the relationships between stations. Markets served are shown by row; programming affilation is shown by column; on-air name is shown in the body of the table, along with station ownership in brackets.
1 One company has a monopoly in this area, as the ABA believed the viewers should have a choice of two commercial stations, even though there is only enough advertising revenue for one. 2 Non-aggregated area. Aggregation is the joining of multiple television markets into one, allowing all broadcasters to transmit to the new aggregated market. 3 Transmission via satellite for remote areas 4 Tasmanian Digital Televison (TDT), a digital only station, only recently began broadcasting. Southern Cross, as the former sole broadcaster of Seven and Ten programming in the state, has retained significant Ten programming for the benefit of analogue only viewers. It is expected to align fully with Seven once digital television receivers are common enough that significant advertising revenues can be made via the platform. 5 Mildura Digital Television (MDT) a joint venture company between WIN and Prime, is due to start broadcasting in 2005. While it's format has yet to be officially anounced, it is widely expected to carry significant Network Ten programming. Very little Ten programming is currently available in Mildura (via WIN), and most of that is sport. |
Commercial networks
There are three main commercial networks in Australia:
In the five major capital cities, the stations use these names. They are also used in some rural and remote areas.
In other areas, there are stations who contain just as much network programming as these stations, but use different names. In a few areas there are less than three commercial broadcasters, and these three streams find themselves on two stations.
Most of the commercial stations in the major captials are owned by the same company that owns the network, and most rural and regional stations are owned by different companies. However, this rule is not absolute (as can be seen in the above table).
Regional and remote commercial networks
Regional and remote on-air names include:
- Central GTS/BKN
- Golden West Network (GWN)
- Imparja
- NBN Television
- Prime Television
- Seven Central
- Seven Darwin
- Seven Queensland
- Southern Cross Tasmania
- Southern Cross Ten
- Tasmanian Digital Television
- WIN Television
- WIN Ten
Most stations using these names are clear extensions of the three major networks, and their on-air graphics usually make this very clear. Stations in the two channel markets generally look very much like one of the major commercial networks, with a few programs from one or two others thrown in.
As with the major metro stations, local content is usually only in the form of a nightly news program and advertising. Some stations import all their "local" news though, and some have a lot more local programming, like NBN.
Community stations
Some cities also have a community station. Although the stations are not strongly related, they are usually known as Channel 31 because most of them transmit on that frequency:
Channel 31
Amateur stations
The Australian Amateur Radio bands include frequencies standard TVs can receive. A few hardcore amateurs make use of this by intermitantly broadcasting video.
This is primarily done on a frequency that's approximately where Channel 16 is. Sometimes satelite and other frequencies are used. Channel 35 was used until July 2001 when the Australian Communications Authority reallocated Channel 35 to digital television.
Television Gladesville in Sydney operated on channel 35 for 12 years, and still transmits three nights per week using frequency allocations at 444.25 MHz with translators into other areas.
Televisual transmissions using non-standard formats are also sometimes made on other frequencies. These can generally only be decoded by computers.
List of Australian television callsigns
When each broadcaster is granted a license, they select a callsign. For commercial networks, these are generally three letters, followed by a number. The first two letters are selected by the licensee; the third letter indicates the state or territory; and the number indicates the frequency (channel) that the station broadcasts on at its primary site. For example, HSV-7 broadcasts on channel 7 in Victoria. Sometimes the third letter is used as part of the acronym or mnemonic to name the station - for example GTV represents 'General TeleVision' or 'General TV', although the V stands for victoria.
With the onset of aggregation in regional areas, and now digital television, the callsigns do not retain the meaning that they did in the past. Stations will sometimes change frequency, or have different frequencies at different locations, such as re-transmission sites, where the same signal is re-broadcast in a different area. However the three letter codes have generally not changed and are still used within the industry.
A list of callsigns is show below, with original explanations of the callsigns, and alternate uses shown in brackets.
- New South Wales/ACT
- Sydney
- TCN-9 - Television Corporation NSW
- ATN-7 - Amalgamated Television NSW (1980s - "Australian Television Network")
- TEN-10 - The number TEN (1990s - "The Entertainment Network")
- Regional
- Wollongong - WIN-4 - Wollongong Illawarra News/Network
- Newcastle - NBN-3 - Newcastle Broadcasting and Television Corporation, New South Wales
- Canberra - CTC-7 - Capital Television Canberra (?)
- Lismore - RTN-8 (NRN-8 since aggregation)
- Orange - CBN-8
- Wagga Wagga - RVN-2 (CBN-2 since aggregation)
- Tamworth - NEN-9 New England (?)
- Coffs Harbour - NRN-11 Northern Rivers (?)
- Dubbo - CWN-6 (CBN-6 since aggregation)
- Griffith - MTN-9 Murrumbidgee Television (?)
- Taree - ECN-8 (NEN-8 since aggregation)
- Broken Hill - BKN-7 - BroKeN hill (?)
- Sydney
- Victoria
- Melbourne
- Regional
- Traralgon - GLV-10 Gippsland, Latrobe Valley
- Shepparton - GMV-6 Goulburn Murray Victoria (VTV-6 since aggregation)
- Bendigo - BCV-8 Bendigo Central Victoria (?)
- Ballarat - BTV-6 - Ballarat TeleVision (now VTV-36 since aggregation and conversion from VHF)
- Albury - AMV-4 Albury Murray Victoria (now AMV-11)
- Mildura - STV-8 - Sunraysia TeleVision
- Queensland
- Brisbane
- QTQ-7 - Queensland Telecasters/Television (?)
- BTQ-9 - Brisbane Telecasters/Television (?)
- TVQ-10 - TeleVision Queensland (?)
- Regional
- Townsville - TNQ-7 - Townsville/Television North Queensland (?)
- Toowoomba - DDQ-10 - (now RTQ-0) Darling Downs (?)
- Rockhampton - RTQ-7 - Rockhampton Telecasters/Television Queensland (?)
- Marybourough - SEQ-8 - (now STQ-8, originally WBQ-8) South East Queensland (?)
- Cairns - FNQ-10 - Far North Queensland (?) (now TNQ-10)
- Southern Downs - SDQ-4 - Southern Downs (now RTQ-42)
- Mackay - MVQ-6 (now STQ-6)
- Mt Isa - ITQ-8 - Isa Telecasters/Television (?)
- Brisbane
- Western Australia
- Perth
- Regional
- Bunbury - BTW-3 - Bunbury Telecasters/Television (?) (now SSW-3)
- Albany - GSW-9 (now SSW-9)
- Kalgoorlie - VEW-8
- Gerlandton - GTW-11 - Geraldton Telecasters/Television (?)
- South Australia
- Adelaide
- SAS-7 (was 10)- South Australia (?)
- NWS-9
- ADS-10 (was 7)- ADelaide (?)
- Regional
- Mt Gambier - SES-8 - South East South Australia
- Port Pirie - GTS-4 - Gulf Telecasters
- Riverland - RTS-5A - Riverland Telecasters/Television (?)
- Adelaide
- Tasmania
- Northern Territory
- NTD-8 - Northern Territory/Telecasters/Television (?)
- TND-34 - Territory/Telecasters/Television North (?)
- Satellite broadcast licenses
- Central and east
- IMP - Imparja
- QQQ - Queensland Queensland Queensland
- West
- WOW - WOW we've finally got two commercial TV stations (?)
- WAW - Western Australia
- Central and east