Television in Melbourne Television in Melbourne

Melbourne is served by six free-to-air television networks.

The three commercial television providers, the Seven Network, the Nine Network and Network 10 have commenced broadcasting new sub-channels including 7HD, 7Two, 7mate, 7flix, 9HD, 9Gem, 9Go!, 9Life, 10 HD, 10 Peach, 10 Bold.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation provides four channels, ABC (also available in High Definition), ABC2, ABC Me and ABC News from their Southbank studios.

The Special Broadcasting Service television also provides four television channels, SBS (also available in High Definition), SBS Viceland, NITV and Food Network.

C31 Melbourne is a public access community television station which screens mostly foreign-language television for migrant communities, and amateur lifestyle programs.

Melbourne has a large and thriving television industry that along with Sydney, produces most of the Australian prime-time television content.

Melbourne produced television series include Neighbours, Kath & Kim, Hey Hey It's Saturday, The Footy Show (AFL), Blue Heelers, Dancing with the Stars, Steven Spielberg's The Pacific, Rush, Underbelly, Thank God You're Here, Rove Live, Summer Heights High, The Project, The Marngrook Footy Show, Millionaire Hot Seat, Deal Or No Deal, The Chase Australia, Family Feud, Offspring, The Panel, The Real Housewives of Melbourne, Winners & Losers and House Husbands.

The ABC has a large headquarters and production facility in the inner-city suburb of Southbank, SBS studios at Federation Square, C31 at Melbourne city, Nine at Docklands (previously Richmond), Ten at South Yarra (previously Nunawading) and Seven at Docklands (previously South Melbourne).

Melbourne is also served by paid subscription television services Foxtel, Optus TV and UBI World TV.

Melbourne Television

There are three main metropolitan networks, the Seven Network, Nine Network and Network 10. Although primarily targeted at metropolitan areas, these names are also used in some regional areas (others choose to run the same programming as these stations, but use independent names).

Melbourne
Metropolitan area (including Geelong)
Seven Melbourne > Seven West Media
Nine Melbourne > Nine Entertainment
10 Melbourne > Ten Network Holdings

Regional Victoria
Ballarat, Bendigo, Albury (NSW), Shepparton, Traralgon
Seven Victoria > Seven West Media
Nine Victoria > WIN Corporation
10 Victoria > Southern Cross Austereo

Mildura/Sunraysia
Seven Mildura > Seven West Media
Nine Mildura > WIN Corporation
10 Mildura > Seven West Media/WIN Corporation

Subscription television

Two of the three major providers of subscription television in Australia carry a common service; however they have a number of differences. Foxtel currently 'controls' the common service that Optus resell. This service is known as the Foxtel Platform.

Austar broadcast into all of regional Australia (except Western Australia), Tasmania and Darwin while Foxtel broadcast in all capital cities, the Gold Coast, the Central Coast and all of Western Australia until mid-2012 when Foxtel/Austar merged hence Foxtel gaining the Austar coverage areas. Optus Television operates only in the small parts of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide where it has laid cable.

SelecTV was the fourth provider of subscription television controlled by WIN Corporation.[22] SelecTV was available throughout Australia via satellite and focused on providing content in comparatively low priced packages to a number of specialised market segments; including Spanish, Greek, and Italian. As of January 2011, the service is no longer available.

There are two small region-based subscription television providers; TransTV Digital which is available in Canberra; and Neighbourhood Cable based in Ballarat, and also available in Geelong & Mildura.

There are also a number of satellite services that target specific language speaking groups, the largest being UBI World TV, a non-English language service. Globecast TV and Pan Global TV are non-English language, Christian and sport channel platforms that are controlled by Globecast. Various operators run their own subscription services on these platforms. In addition, there are other satellite subscription services available through other providers.

Datacasting

Datacasting in Australia began as a test transmission in Sydney using one of the reserved digital spectrum positions. Australian broadcast infrastructure company Broadcast Australia undertook the three-year trial using the DVB-T system. The trial consisted of a number of services on one standard 7 MHz multiplex, collectively known as Digital Forty Four. The service was extended past the three-year period, but ended in March 2010

The services included; a combined program guide for the free-to-air broadcasters, named Channel 4; a news, sport, and weather datacast channel provided by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation; a government and public information channel, known as Channel NSW, which included real time traffic information and surf webcams; the Australian Christian Channel; the Expo Channel; and various federal parliamentary audio broadcasts.

Today, datacasting consists of information based channels that are broadcast as subchannels of the existing commercial broadcasters. As of mid 2013, these broadcast mainly infomercials. Examples include TVSN and 4ME.

Digital ATV Channels

VK3RTV is Melbourne's main amateur television station, and is available via Channel 16 at the lower end of the UHF TV Band (below channel 28). The amateur television repeater is located on Mount Dandenong.[26]

There are a small number of amateur television enthusiasts (amateur radio operators with Television transmitting equipment) who transmit to Melbourne and surrounds via VK3RTV.

These include VK3AAZ, VK3AOB, VK3AGJ, VK3BFG, VK3BCU, VK3CH, VK3CRG, VK3FMD, VK3GMZ, VK3IV, VK3JDA, VK3JDG, VK3KBL, VK3KHB, VK3KOS, VK3LA, VK3MN, VK3PB, VK3TMS, VK3TVZ, VK3XOK, VK3XKD and VK3XZA.[27]

VK3RTV is now a 2-channel digital television facility on 446 MHz. The new system features two standard definition digital channels.

Bendigo in Central Victoria also has an Amateur Television Transmitter (VK3RBO) on the 13 cm band. This can be received using surplus microwave dishes and downconverters. The station is known to show episodes of the Amateur Television Program 'Amateurlogic'.

This page was last edited on 28 July 2023, at 04:59 (UTC).

Melbourne Television Shows

Television shows produced in Melbourne have included Neighbours, Kath & Kim, The Secret Life of Us, Winners and Losers, Offspring, Underbelly, House Husbands, Wentworth and Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, along with national news-based programs such as The Project, Insiders and ABC News Breakfast.

Melbourne is also known as the game show capital of Australia; productions such as Million Dollar Minute, The Chase Australia, Millionaire Hot Seat and Family Feud are all based in Melbourne.

Reality television productions such as Dancing with the Stars, MasterChef, The Block and The Real Housewives of Melbourne have all filmed in and around Melbourne.

Television Networks

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➼ Television in Melbourne 






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