PerthNorg

Community TV stations awaiting Conroy digital plan

TV broadcasters are hoping to finally hear how the federal Government plans to switch the sector to digital transmission when they meet communications minister Stephen Conroy in Melbourne on Monday morning.

Senator Conroy was expected to outline what digital spectrum the stations would be allocated, what funding they would get and an approximate time frame for it to happen, one source said.

The free-to-air commercial networks, and ABC and SBS have been able to simulcast since 2001, but community stations have been confined to analogue.

The stations have long complained that, while they waited, their eroding audience, caused by viewers buying digital sets and losing the analogue signal, was putting them under increasing financial pressure.

Perth outfit Access 31 faded to black last week after nine years on air when a proposed bailout package came undone.

Perth architect Garry Baverstock had offered $500,000 of his own money to save the station, but after joining its board found its financial position much worse than he expected.

He said it would have cost about $1.3 million to keep the station going, not the $750,000 he had been told.

"I was misled ... As soon as I got there the company was up to its neck in alligators," he said.

"I put in $25,000, which kept things going for another month ... Unfortunately there is not too much of that left. So I'm going to have to be one of the unsecured creditors like everyone else."

Mr Baverstock said his white-knight offer had been conditional on LotteryWest providing a $250,000 grant, which he belatedly learned would not be forthcoming.

"As soon as I heard that ... I went straight back to the board and said there was no choice but to close up shop because there was no money left to pay staff," he said.

"We ceased transmission the next day."

He said debts to unsecured creditors totalled at least $600,000.

A members' meeting has been called for September 1 to formally appoint a liquidator.

Former chief executive Andrew Brine, who resigned in July along with two Access 31 directors, was not sure why the rescue offer had been withdrawn.

"Mr Baverstock was given every opportunity to look at anything and everything that was going on," he said.

"We were transparent, as we always have been as a community sector organisation ... The board had brought in an independent chartered accountant and liquidators to have a look at the financial position."

Mr Brine said he was "absolutely devastated" by the station's shutdown.

"The problem is the whole business model for community television has been eroded by digital take-up," he said.

Other community TV station heads said Access 31's failure had no implications for the rest of the sector because it had been run on a different business model.

A spokesman for Perth program-maker CTV Perth said it had approached the Australian Communications and Media Authority about taking over Access 31's licence.

CTV Perth was one of the unsuccessful applicants for the permanent licence in 2004.

ACMA had first been alerted to Access 31's money troubles in May, a spokesman said.

"We are in touch with Access 31 and we're monitoring the situation there," he said.