It’s around footy grand final time that the problem of poor TV reception becomes even more painful.
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We know the issue well in several towns in my electorate.
In Yass, ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority) and Essential Energy are trying to resolve interference to TV reception caused by arcing on power poles. They’ve found the problem to be quite widespread.
In Crookwell, I have been working hard to secure Federal funding for a new retransmission tower. This has now been confirmed and should solve the issue for that community, but it’s by no means a broad-based solution.
There’s a deeper problem that needs fixing – and that’s the inability of the regional television networks to fund infrastructure to deliver reliable free-to-air reception and services.
Outdated media ownership laws are crippling regional operators.
The Broadcasting Services Act (1992) is from a pre-internet era. It restricts broadcasters to a reach of less than 75 per cent of the population (the "reach rule"). Yet now, any broadcaster can reach the entire population online, with services like Channel 7's Plus7 or ABC's iView.
As a regional MP I despair at the impact of the reach rule. As the metropolitan networks sell content to the regional operators at high prices, the regionals cut local news content to the bone, and cut new investment in transmission towers. They have no choice.
TV towers might seem unnecessary in the modern era, but free-to air will remain important for older viewers and for high-profile national TV events. To make things worse, large parts of regional Australia lost TV reception in the recent switchover from analogue to digital. Despite the former Labor government spending more than $900 million on the switchover, not a single new tower was funded.
Media deregulation has been waiting in the wings for far too long. If we don't act quickly to ensure a smooth transition, large parts of our media sector are at risk in the same way the traditional music industry, bookstores and taxis are at risk. Local news content, TV transmission and access to major sporting events are also at risk.
In the meantime, I’ll keep the community informed about what we can do in the short term to reduce excessive interference.
