[LINK] Labor would allow fourth TV network

[Jan Whitaker]

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>>Labor leader Mark Latham plans a radical shake-up of Australian 
>>television with the introduction of a fourth commercial network if he 
>>becomes prime minister.

This has always baffled me.  In the 1960s, I grew up in a small town in 
Indiana, around 55,000 people.  We had two local tv stations, complete with 
news staffs, broadcast facilities, local programming like kids tv with 
cartoons, all that stuff.  We we able to receive two or three more stations 
from about 70 miles away in Indianapolis and also one from Bloomington 
south of us.  Some of that programming was duplicate from the national 
networks, particularly in the evening, so you watched the channel with the 
best reception.  We didn't have a public broadcast station.  But we had 
access to 5 stations probably serving a population of no more than 250,000 
total in the broadcast area.  The population isn't much higher now, but I 
don't know what the number of stations are there now.  Cable TV has also 
come a long way, but given the rural nature of the area, I doubt that it 
has taken up the whole market.

Why can't Australia support another free to air network?

Jan

JLWhitaker Associates
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at melbpc.org.au  --  http://member.melbpc.org.au/~jwhit/whitentr.htm
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