Colac community station forced to move to make way for NewsRadio

The NewsRadio expansion continues with ACMA identifying frequencies in the Colac region of Victoria and the Bowen region of Queensland for the ABC’s rolling news and parliamentary service. The Colac decision is controversial because the local community station will have to move frequency.

The Colac service will be available on FM 104.7, despite the objections of the local community radio service, which will be required to move frequency. The station and the CBAA were lobbying for some compensation for the inconvenience of moving, but it is not known whether they were granted some monetary compensation for costs associated with the frequency change.

ACMA says it could not find an alternative frequency due to spectrum congestion for high power radio services in Colac:

“ACMA was unable to identify any vacant FM frequencies that could be used for ABC radio services. ACMA has therefore varied the frequency of the long-term community radio service, 3OCR, operating in the area from 104.7 MHz to 98.3 MHz.”

NewsRadio has also been made available in Bowen, Queensland, on FM 96.7. In that case ACMA was able to identify unoccupied FM radio spectrum for the new service. But further expansion will force 4K1G to move one of its repeater frequencies.

In order to free up spectrum for on-air tests of possible frequencies for the proposed ABC NewsRadio service in Townsville, ACMA has varied the frequencies of community radio service 4KIG Townsville’s transmitter in Bowen and a high power open narrowcasting service in Charters Towers.

4KIG at Bowen will move from 94.3 MHz to 95.9 MHz, while the 4TAB service in Charters Towers will move from 94.3 MHz to 99.1 MHz.

ACMA Chairman Chris Chapman says the decisions are consistent with the government’s broader plan to extend the ABC NewsRadio services to all transmission areas of Australia with a population of 10,000 or more.