The End of Free-to-Air TV in Australia?

Getting rid of over the air TV is a mistake, especially for those who live in rural towns where the internet is not reliable or even capable of streaming video. Having said that, we should modernize what's available with DVB-T2. It's disappointing to tune into big sporting events and only be able to watch them at "HD" 720p because of our aging infrastructure being unable to do FHD 1080p or UHD 4k. HDR would also be nice too.

Me personally? I couldn't care less. FTA television in OZ has been dog water for 20 years

Is the government going to give me free, reliable, wireless, high speed internet first? If not then don’t take away my reliable, free-to-air TV broadcasts. I don’t pay for streaming and don’t want to. Amazing how many people now pay for streaming and say they are bored and there’s nothing to watch. Guess what, you better be careful what you wish for. If they turn off free services and only broadcast over the Internet you can be sure they’ll jack up prices every year and it will be too late to complain then!

FTA is unwatchable. Ads need to be severely curtailed to make it a contender for anything else.

The TV channels 7,9 &10 have been pushing for this for some time now. They want all of their content behind a log in system with the ability to put programs of their choice behind a pay wall.

Moving everthing online is a dangerous move. It's like the wind down of SW broadcasting and reduction in MW AM stations. It is putting all of our eggs in one basket. All good while the new technology is working. But what about when its not, e.g., during times of natural and man-made disasters/conflcts/wars. As the ARS regularly demonstrates, when the chaos are down a basic, simple, low tech service can still broadcast/communicate. Unfortunately the public service and political class is bereft of technology savvy people that understand RF comms.

Being in the USA I think it's a horrible idea. Here there are still parts of this country that either still have party line telephone service or don't have landline telephone service at all because they are in such a remote area. The only way some people get ANY information is TV or radio. OTA TV is also part of the Emergency Alert System in the USA. I look at it this way. TV should be free as it always has been. Requiring people to pay a monthly fee for internet service (if it's even available) so they can watch TV goes against the whole "Free" aspect of what TV has always been.

Malcolm Turnbull killed off community TV in 2014. This would be the opportunity to revive Community TV.

I just hate relying on internet, even in 2026, I thinks it’s more the fact we’re losing control of options - everything will be internet, and I hate it. My 700 4K physical movie collection looks better everyday.

haven't watched normal t.v in over 15 years

The reason for closing the Broadcast TV is to free up the spectrum so that they can sell it to private industry for more money to line politician and public servant pockets. Note not to reduce our interest payments.

Terrible idea to abandon free to air broadcasting. In wartime, enemies need only attack our vulnerable undersea cables, and communication satellites leaving us completely blind. Australia, like a lot of western world illogically abandoned shortwave radio. You know who took 100% advantage when Australia abandoned SW? - China. SW radios work, plus transmitters are easy to erect & we hams are perfect examples of this able to establish comms links when infrastructure has failed. How many times have we witnessed entire mobile carrier networks go down Australia wide, many times due to a harmless routing configuration oversight?. The government impetus is purely about $$$ via spectrum sales, plus internet can be controlled & locked down. I know many who are leaving the net in droves due to censorship. Typical greedy politicians who believe our infrastrucure is infallible when history & hams proved otherwise

I don't watch Free To Air TV very often apart from the news or if there is a decent movie on, and I never watch those so called "reality TV" shows just for something to do, I never watch on-line TV. The 1960's, 70's and 80's had much much better programs to watch.

I switched to streaming free-to-air TV because we get a lot of dropouts when ducting happens, and being in a rural fringe area to start with doesn’t help. But I’d bet more than 90% of the area still watch via antenna.

Unfortunately, over-the-air television broadcasting in Central Europe was discontinued eleven years ago. My homemade TV, built using an oscilloscope tube, became useless as a result. I am still sad about it!

Haven't owned or used a TV since they shut off the analog signals. That's 25-26yrs ago. Never used internet for streaming either. The content is more of an issue than the delivery method.

This is interesting. Here in the USA, the FCC seems paralyzed by indecision and, frankly, not very interested in how best to serve US TV viewers. We, too, have about 20% of the public still using broadcast TV. As an early adopter of HDTV, we use an older, limited broadcast standard, essentially MPEG-2. The broadcasters want to move to a new standard called ATSC 3.0. It promises major improvements, but the broadcasters are stuck on demanding encryption of the channels, and the method seems to require at least some internet access from time to time to update certificates and such. My personal belief is that the broadcasters will use that encryption technology to hijack part of that free spectrum they are given and devote it to paid video or data services vs. free TV broadcasts. I completely object to both the encryption and using part of the FREE spectrum they receive for paid services. Because of these issues, we seem to be going nowhere fast here in the USA.

They forgot Scenario 4: PERMANENTLY move to VAST (Viewer Access Satellite Television).

Just spent 3 weeks in Canada, and watching cable TV was absolute crap. I stayed in about 8 houses and hotels, and every one had a different set up. You can't watch consistent programming, and people are paying $50 to $100 per MONTH to watch shit TV

I stopped watching free to air tv 25 years ago and haven’t missed it in the slightest.