Community television in Australia

Community television in Australia (CTV) is a form of free-to-air non-commercial citizen media in which a television station is owned, operated and/or programmed by a community group to provide local programming to its broadcast area. In principle, community television is another model of facilitating media production and involvement by private citizens and can be likened to public-access television in the United States and community television in Canada.

Each station is a not-for-profit entity and is subject to specific provisions of the Broadcasting Services Act 1992. A Code of Conduct, registered with the Australian Communications and Media Authority, provides additional regulation of the sector. The community television stations operate independently so they are technically not a network (in the commonly held definition of the term). However, some programs are broadcast on multiple stations in the group, and they do co-operate with each other in various ways. The stations act collectively through the Australian Community Television Alliance.

"Channel 31" is the colloquial name for metropolitan community-licensed television stations throughout Australia. The name originates from UHF 31, the frequency and channel number reserved for analogue broadcasts by metropolitan community television stations. As of 2010, all stations are now broadcasting in 576i standard definition on digital channel 44 since their analogue signals were switched off and replaced with digital.

In the early 1970s, the Australia Council worked together with various community groups to establish a number of video production centres that could be used to produce Australian television programs. Many people began using these production centres, as well as their own resources, to make television programs. It was still difficult for these programs to be screened on commercial or government-funded television. It has been suggested that this was because the programs were thought to be too short, long or different from the programs already showing.

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