The ABC’s controversial decision to end its shortwave radio transmission service in the Northern Territory earlier this year is continuing to elicit strong condemnation.
At a recent protest outside ABC headquarters, ABC Friends NSW President Mal Hewitt said the axing of the service was having a huge impact on a number of groups. As well as the likes of Aboriginal Sea Rangers, truckies, road workers and those living on cattle stations, he said grey nomads were also feeling the impact before describing how there used to be ‘clusters of them around their FM receivers on a Saturday afternoon listening to the footy’.
The ABC brought to an end almost a century of ABC shortwave radio broadcasts when it closed NT’s three short-wave transmitters in Katherine, Tennant Creek and Alice Spring on January 31, as it accelerated its shift to digital platforms.
Ahead of the closure the ABC issued a statement saying it remained ‘deeply committed to rural and regional Australia and the one-third of Australians who live outside the capital cities’.
“The ABC acknowledges a small audience living and working in the Northern Territory favour short-wave radio when accessing ABC services,” the statement said.
It said there already were no ABC shortwave services in Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia or New South Wales and ‘nor has there been an expressed need for this’.
While estimates suggest that only a few hundred to a few thousand people were still listening to ABC programs over shortwave, some of them said they relied on it for all practical purposes for virtually their only access to news and current affairs.
However, the ABC statement said remote workers and travellers can now use the VAST satellite system to access all ABC Radio and TV in digital quality … a stance dismissed by critics as simply not accounting for the reality of service availability in remote areas.
While the Gemtree Caravan Park – located 140 kilometres from Alice Springs on the Plenty Highway, is able to receive AM broadcasts – manager Kate McMaster is in no doubt that the decision will affect many of the travellers who stay at her park.
“Internet and mobile are not available in some extremely isolated areas, so people who live there and people travelling through there are in a telecommunications black spot,” she said. “Many of our nomads listen to portable radios as they travel around and, until there are no black spots across the country, we need to keep this service.”
She said Australia was still a dinosaur when it comes to telecommunications and said the recent closure of the shortwave transmitters was a premature move.
“What about those crossing the Plenty, the Gibb River Road, the Tanami … the Outback Way?” she said. “Once the government completes the mobile blackspot program and once NBN actually works for people in the bush, then decisions like this could be made … perhaps!”
· Do you – or rather, did you – listen to shortwave radio? Comment below.
If you do – even occasionally it is very important that you put a submission into http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Environment_and_Communications/Shortwaveradio
or http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Environment_and_Communications/ABC_Rural_Regional_Bill
Complain to the ABC as well if you like but don’t expect a response. ABC paid a UK consultant to come up with the estimate that just 500 people used the shortwave service.
I used the shortwave service and cannot believe the ABC has axed it. A Sydney centric view with no regard for the efficiency of HF radio to cover wide areas at low cost. If you agree you may submit to the Senate committee to voice your concern.