Youth broadcaster, and community radio station, Edge Radio, will be allowed to provide a DAB+ digital radio service in Hobart despite being in the RA3 licence area for the city.
Digital radio services are usually identical to commercial radio licence areas, and, generally, for a community radio broadcasting licensee to be eligible to provide digital radio services, it must either hold an RA1 Licence for the planned relevant commercial radio licence area, or have its licence area deemed to be the same as the commercial radio licence area.
Last week the ACMA announced a deeming determination that will allow Edge Radio to provide a DAB+ digital radio service in Hobart.
CEO of the CBAA, Jon Bisset, says, “The CBAA is very pleased that the ACMA has recognised the basis for the inclusion of the RA3 licence area for digital radio in Hobart, and that as a community youth broadcaster Edge Radio will be able to contribute to the diversity of radio services available on the digital broadcasting platform”.
Both the CBAA and Edge Radio made submissions to the ACMA consultation to support deeming of the RA3 community broadcasting licence area for digital radio.
Having a look at the document https://www.acma.gov.au/sites/default/files/2019-12/Explanatory-statement_2019L01537ES.docx refers to community stations with a licence area designated RA3 having the same coverage as commercial stations designated RA1 in the DAB+ band.
Could you make the distinction between "Edge Radio" which is a youth-oriented community radio station in Hobart, www.edgeradio.org.au and "The Edge 96.1" www.961.com.au operated by the ARN which broadcasts its program nationally via DAB+.
Also, while there has not been news on another radio station on DAB+, I could not find anything about another recent DAB+ radio station in the Sydney market called "Radio Maria", or "Maria" as displayed on my DAB+ receivers.
I searched the acma.gov.au site, with search terms Maria, Maria Radio to no satisfaction. Googling "Radio Maria" seems to be a world-wide religious radio network based in Rome.
The content of the current transmission appears to be mainly orchestral music, no news, the occasional station ID, and the recitation of the Rosary. There is no program listing for the Sydney market.
While it appears to be a Catholic religious station in the same vein as EWTN Radio and TV, there does not seem to be a schedule for the Australian market as its PNG station.
The station has been on air for about the last two weeks.
Thank you,
Anthony of exciting and up-to-date Belfield