ACMA won’t adapt proposed deeming principles for digital expansion
18 March 2021 · News
The ACMA has released the outcome of its consultation on proposed deeming principles for regional radio licence areas.
In June 2020, the ACMA consulted on adopting a set of principles to guide deem...
You've reached our premium or archival content
To access this page, and more great content just like it, you need to become a paid subscriber.
If you already have an account, please login.
Otherwise, registration is quick and you'll have access instantly after payment.
Tags: ACMA | CBAA | CRA | DAB+ | deeming
“The ACMA decisions seems to ignore the technical characteristics of broadcast systems.
1. In capital cities there are two types of community broadcasts. One covers the whole city and the other covers a number of suburbs and is usually parochial to that area.
2. DAB+ in Australia is broadcast from the most powerful DAB+ transmitters in the world, with the transmitting antenna high on TV transmitting towers. This means that the coverage is designed to cover all of each capital city. The fact that it is a multiplex means that the coverage area of commercial and community broadcasters must be identical from each transmitter.
3. The UK has small scale DAB broadcasting, which is not suitable here because there are only 8 DAB+ transmission channels available in the populated parts of Australia. The rest of the channels are used by TV, which is not the case in the UK. This means that additional DAB+ channels are not available if DAB+ is to be used in areas surround our capital cities.
4. A better option for community broadcasting and for all regional broadcasting is to use DRM on the now vacant TV channels 0, 1 and 2. There are 206 DRM transmission channels available. Each transmission channel can carry up to 3 broadcasts. Since there are so many channels available it means that the transmitter can be located in the middle of each audience, requiring much less power and therefore transmission costs.