Australian and New Zealand television frequencies
Television frequency allocation has evolved since the commencement of television in Australia in 1956, and later in New Zealand in 1960. There was no coordination between the national spectrum management authorities in either country to harmonize the channel frequency allocations. Whilst this can be partially explained by geographical and population considerations, the management of the spectrum in both countries is largely the product of the differing economic forces and the respective political responses. NZ was not able to get TV broadcasting going partly because there was still an ongoing rationing of industrial and technical goods in effect up until 1965, an artifact of the 1939 to 1945 War.
The demand and planning for television in Australia intensified after the second world war, with the Chifley government first favouring the existing British model (state monopoly) in 1948, and NZ used more or less the same model for the introduction of Television in the 1960s. Private TV Broadcasting did not come to NZ until the 1980s, but there was no spectrum expansion to cope with the new arrangement.
The state monopoly idea in Australia was later to be revised by the Menzies Government to include privately owned and operated commercial services that formed a hybrid between the arrangements found in the UK and the United States. Conversely, New Zealand opted for the British model of a state monopoly when it commenced television services four years later, with a single channel being available until 1975, and private commercial services not being introduced until the late 1970s.
Notable Quirks
Channel 37 is a purposefully unused television channel in countries historically using the System M and System N broadcast television system standards in the general frequency region of (600 MHz to 620 MHz). In Australia and NZ (600 MHz to 620 MHz) is used for digital terrestrial television.
NZ 700 MHz Auction, Sky DVB2 and the end of VHF for TV use
in use for digital terrestrial television in New Zealand generally only or primarily receives the UHF frequency bands. The future viability of the VHF bands for television purposes is therefore limited so the entire VHF TV band will be abandoned by 2018.
Australian television broadcasting commenced in 1956 in Melbourne and Sydney to coincide with the 1956 Summer Olympics.
Three stations commenced operations on a ten channel spectrum arrangement: the ABC operating in the VHF low band (VHF Ch 2), and the commercial stations operating in the VHF high band (VHF Ch 7 & 9). At the outset, commercial stations were independently owned, but due to economic forces network affiliations were soon established.
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