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Television in New England
Television is major source of entertainment for the people of New England. Television began on the 23rd January 1965 with the opening of NRN-11 in Coffs Harbour, and within a couple of years had spread all over the area that would become New England. From these small beginnings, television has grown to become a major employer of over 1,000 people, and plays a significant role in the contribution of cultural development of the nation.
Since independence, the quality and scope of television has grown to encompass a broad range of programming in the areas of comedy, drama, news and sport. The television industry is currently regulated by the Broadcasting Regulation Commission.
Providers
There are three free-to-air and one satellite subscription networks in New England. All are high definition digital services and provide coverage to all parts of the nation twenty-four hours a day. Three of these networks are commercial enterprises and trade on the stock exchange, whilst the fourth, RTNE, is a publicly owned. By law, each network is allowed to have a maximum of four individual channels, although none have yet taken up their full quota owing to the expense required to run such a high number of stations on a network. The networks operate in four regions, with localised news and information based out of the major regional centres of New England.
Galaxy Television - A satellite subscription television service, Galaxy provides fifty channels of news, sport, movies and documentaries, all of which feature local and overseas content.
ITRN Broadcasting -
New England Broadcasting -
Radio Television New England -
Channels
ITN -
NET -
RTNE One - The flagship channel of the RTNE network and the oldest television network in New England, RTNE One succeeded the ABC1
in 2014. One is primarily an information and news channel, and as such tends to carry news, current affairs and documentary programming. Examples include Biography, Questions Without Notice and New England Tonight. There are also entertainment programmes, although these tend to be more serious and mainstream than those shown on TV Two. A number of international news and current affairs programmes are also shown.
RTNE Two - The second channel of the national television service, RTNE Two succeeded the programming gap left by the switch off of ABC2 in 2014. The channel focuses on entertainment and delivers a strong line-up of comedies, drama, movies and local programming. Two caters primarily to a young and family oriented audience, with a wide range and depth of locally-produced content, with shows like Macdonaldtown, Home Handy and Music Hits. Two also screens many international shows, with the majority coming from Britain, New Zealand and Canada.
Top Ten Programmes
Regulation
Regulation of the broadcastings industry is maintained by the Broadcasting Regulation Commission, which is another crown statutory agency. The commission is responsible for the licensing of radio and television stations, and is also the body that polices the Broadcasting Act, which is the formal act outlining broadcasting policy in New England. In extreme cases, the commission can revoke a broadcasting licence. This occurrence is very rare, and has only happened on two instances in the community radio sectors. The usual course of action is impose a large fine and humiliate the entity involved.
The classification of all electronic media is managed by the Office of Electronic Media Content or OEMC, a crown statutory agency. Owing to the protection of free speech in the constitution, the OEMC is usually reluctant to ban a program outright, and any programme that controversial will usually attract an R rating.The use of audio dubbing to remove or change offensive language is also discouraged.
