Can someone please explain how television broadcasting in Australia works? When I was there a few years ago, I remember that even though the networks are called Seven, Nine, and Ten, you had to tune them in the TV and you can tune them to any channel you wanted to. That was before Digital TV. With DTV and HD, are the channels mapped by the tuner like they are in the US? Also, do the main networks actually broadcast on the same channel numbers in every big city? Finally, I was wondering if the networks show the same programming across the country or do they have local programming (i.e. is Seven in Sydney have different programs than Seven in Brisbane)?
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Australian TV
- Thread starter Neel
- Start date
Neel Mehta said:
They are on the respective VHF channels, how you allocate them on your TV set is up to you, the same as any and every other country.
Yes, they are mapped by the digital tuner.
Yes. Years ago the "10" network was the "0/10" network as Brisbane and Melbourne broadcast on channel 0 while Sydney and Adelaide broadcast on channel 10. The regional centres (including the cities of Hobart, Darwin and Canberra) broadcast on different channels, now mostly UHF.
Yes and yes. Most of the programming is networked, however news and some current affairs shows are local as are some daytime advertorial programs and weekend shows. Sport varies across the country depending on which state you are in and which football code is most popular in that state.
Bongwater
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For analog, they also use PAL, not NTSC as they do in The States.
PAL (625 lines) has slightly better definition than 525 line NTSC.
But PAL isn't compatible with NTSC. Nor vice versa. It's really not worth the trouble and price of converters. You're better off buying new equipment when in Australia (or the US.)
Analog radio (for the most part, save the 76-88 MHz end of the FM band) is the same anywhere (unless you're in North Korea, where every radio and TV made is pre-tuned to government run channels ONLY.) Digitally speaking, DAB is the norm everywhere else but the US (something I CAN'T understand. DAB is FAR superior to IBOC...)
Some DVD players (like mine) have built in converters for PAL/NTSC and back. I have a lot of Aussie and British DVDs I watch on it. But nothing for broadcast/satellite or video tape sadly
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PAL (625 lines) has slightly better definition than 525 line NTSC.
But PAL isn't compatible with NTSC. Nor vice versa. It's really not worth the trouble and price of converters. You're better off buying new equipment when in Australia (or the US.)
Analog radio (for the most part, save the 76-88 MHz end of the FM band) is the same anywhere (unless you're in North Korea, where every radio and TV made is pre-tuned to government run channels ONLY.) Digitally speaking, DAB is the norm everywhere else but the US (something I CAN'T understand. DAB is FAR superior to IBOC...)
Some DVD players (like mine) have built in converters for PAL/NTSC and back. I have a lot of Aussie and British DVDs I watch on it. But nothing for broadcast/satellite or video tape sadly
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H
hintomedia
Guest
easyfm said:
It helps that the "Big 5" markets (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide) are all quite far apart from one another, so they could all have the same frequency allocation (2/7/9/10/28/31) without any interference issues. Although as mentioned above Melbourne and Brisbane did start off with VHF 0 instead of VHF 10 (10 was originally allocated to the regional centres outside those 2 cities), frequency swaps were arranged in the 80s so that the allocations in Melbourne and Brisbane now matched that of Sydney's.
This channel number/network association was so strong that an affiliation switch entailed a frequency swap as well. Adelaide originally had ADS-7 and SAS-10; and SAS-10 was co-owned with Perth's TVW-7. IIRC, by the 80s, SAS and TVW's owner decided to affiliate exclusively with the Seven Network. They didn't really have to do anything in Perth, but in Adelaide they arranged a frequency swap such that in late 1987, ADS moved from 7 to 10, and SAS moved from 10 to 7.
From a North American perspective, Australian stations have surprisingly little local news. Seven and Nine have a half hour of local news a day at each of their stations in the big 5 markets, while Ten has a full hour. That's all the local news they get on the commercial stations (plus a few news updates here and there during commercials); all other bulletins are national newscasts coming out of Sydney. (Seven used to produce its 4.30pm national news out of Melbourne, but they've moved it to Sydney too). And when you consider that Sydney and Melbourne would probably rank at around market 10-15 if they were in the US, this amount of local news really isn't much. Then again, considering the oversaturation (and general decline in quality) of local news in the US, perhaps what they have going on in Australia isn't so bad after all.
e-dawg said:
Australian TV is in the process of converting to digital so it is unlikely that you will now purchase a new TV in Australia with standard (PAL) analogue tuning. However yes, an older analogue TV purchased in Australia can be used to receive PAL analogue services in NZ, UK and most of Europe.
Australian TV is undergoing heaps of changes to the effect that we are transmitting a digital signal mainly between 715-840Mhz UHF.all the antennas will he horizontally polarised instead of vertyical and it will still be PAL and not SECAM.
The holders of the old CRT Cathode ray tube TV which is the one bit the picture tube at the back and NOT flat screen TV's will need to purchase a digital set top box which the buyer is then able to plug into their TV and with the assistance of an outside antenna,point it towards the general direction of the transmitting tower and the receiver will receive the TV in digital.
Where I reside has got retransmission TV outputs which are owned and controlled by the local Council and until such time as the Federal Government and also the local Council,get their act together we are forced to watch TV retransmitted from the site on top of the hill at the eastern side of our town.Some residents who live south of the town,can switch their antenna toward the digital output signal and so can many residents that reside west of the town,BUT thoswe whe reside near the mountil are stuffed......
Many residents are using the facilities to upset the Council and to force their hand into providing us with a service before the cutoff point in 2013
Our local town in rural NSW relies on PrimeTV,WinTV,SouthernCross Broadcasting and ABC,in other words Ch7,9,10 & 2
Hope that helps some what
The holders of the old CRT Cathode ray tube TV which is the one bit the picture tube at the back and NOT flat screen TV's will need to purchase a digital set top box which the buyer is then able to plug into their TV and with the assistance of an outside antenna,point it towards the general direction of the transmitting tower and the receiver will receive the TV in digital.
Where I reside has got retransmission TV outputs which are owned and controlled by the local Council and until such time as the Federal Government and also the local Council,get their act together we are forced to watch TV retransmitted from the site on top of the hill at the eastern side of our town.Some residents who live south of the town,can switch their antenna toward the digital output signal and so can many residents that reside west of the town,BUT thoswe whe reside near the mountil are stuffed......
Many residents are using the facilities to upset the Council and to force their hand into providing us with a service before the cutoff point in 2013
Our local town in rural NSW relies on PrimeTV,WinTV,SouthernCross Broadcasting and ABC,in other words Ch7,9,10 & 2
Hope that helps some what
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