Digital_Forty_Four

Digital Forty Four

Digital Forty Four

Sydney television datacasting service

Digital Forty Four was a Sydney-only trial datacasting service that was licensed by the Australian Broadcasting Authority (now the Australian Communications and Media Authority) beginning on 17 March 2004 for an initial two-year run until 31 December 2006.[1][2] The license was extended on several occasions past 2006,[3] however on 29 January 2010 it was announced that Broadcast Australia's datacasting licence for Digital Forty Four would not be extended past 30 April 2010.[4] At midnight on 30 April 2010, all services from Digital Forty Four ceased broadcasting.[5]

Quick Facts Country, Broadcast area ...

The services provided at various times during its six years of operation have included a television guide for free-to-air television, a community service channel providing information on road, weather and surf conditions, with live broadcasts every fifteen minutes, the Australian Christian Channel, Expo shopping channel, NITV, Teachers TV information channel and live broadcasts of the meetings of the Australian Parliament, with audio-video coverage of the House of Representatives and Senate.

Channels

Under conditions associated with the datacasting licence, channels on the Digital Forty Four service had to be either text based or narrowcast services. Entertainment programming was not allowed on the service, however some programming on the Australian Christian Channel was shown in a reduced screen format with text content around it, as that satisfied the datacast requirement.

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Former Channels

As it was a long term trial, many channels that started on the service did not continue until the cessation of broadcasts.

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Legacy

Free-to-air television guide

The ACMA decided in closing the service that it was unlikely that datacast services would come to auction in the near future, and decided continuing the trial was unnecessary for that reason. NITV, which gained coverage on the service, considered the closure of the service a blow to its chances of gaining permanent spectrum for the service, and put the long term viability of the service into question.

Most of the other channels on Digital Forty Four are available unencrypted on satellite or via online streaming.

See also

References

  1. [1]
    "First full datacasting service launched". The Sydney Morning Herald. 17 March 2004. Retrieved 1 May 2016.
  2. [2]
    Washington, Stuart (25 November 2004). "Macquarie on a TV mission". The Australian Financial Review. Retrieved 20 August 2023.
  3. [3]
    "Possible extension of Sydney datacasting trial" (PDF). ACMAsphere. February 2007 – via the Australasian Legal Information Institute.
  4. [4]
    "Sydney datacasting trial to end". ACMA media release 16/2010 – 29 January. Archived from the original on 30 November 2012. Retrieved 1 February 2009.
  5. [5]
    Gonzalez, Miguel (30 April 2010). "Digital Forty Four TV services go off the air". Mumbrella. Retrieved 20 August 2023.
  6. [6]
    "Information on the Datacasting Trial provided by Broadcast Australia to the ACMA 2010" (PDF). Broadcast Australia. 12 January 2010. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 May 2016. Retrieved 1 May 2016.
  7. [7]
    "New Digital Content on Sydney Television Trial". Broadcast Australia. 27 October 2008. Archived from the original on 3 June 2016. Retrieved 1 May 2016.
  8. [8]
    "Christian channel conquers Australian airwaves". Sydney Anglicans. 1 December 2004. Retrieved 28 September 2016.
  9. [9]
    "Macquarie Bank adds datacasting to its range of media services". radioinfo.com.au. 12 October 2004. Retrieved 1 May 2016.
  10. [10]
    "Information on the Datacasting Trial provided by Broadcast Australia to the ACMA - December 2006" (PDF). Broadcast Australia. Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 October 2016. Retrieved 28 September 2016.
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