Planning before the Broadcasting ServicePlanning before the Broadcasting Services Act

Planning before the Broadcasting Services Act

Planning under the Broadcasting Act 1942 was carried out by the appropriate Government Department on a site‑specific basis with detailed engineering specifications of the transmitting antenna radiation performance.

Guidance to broadcasters was provided through a document known as the draft Planning Guidelines (also known as GS1 through GS4). These guidelines were never given status other than draft because of uncertainty as to what head of power was appropriate for such documents and what force they might have. In 1992, GS1 through GS4 were restructured into a single document and published as the Technical Planning Parameters and Methods for Terrestrial Broadcasting (the TPPs) by the then Department of Transport and Communications.

The TPPs were developed in consultation with the industry and its engineering consultants and included all of the essential planning requirements, plus a great deal of advisory information to assist facilities planners. The TPPs were based on relevant Reports and Recommendations of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and on planning methods and practices developed in North America, United Kingdom and Europe, as well as broadcasting planning techniques and planning parameters developed in Australia.

The TPPs did not have the force of law but rather were detailed planning guides based on generally accepted planning methods, which if applied to proposals by licence applicants, were likely to meet the requirements of the regulator.

Transmitter specifications issued as a result of this planning process (a licence warrant under the former Act) had the force of law, and essentially required even slight changes to the antenna system to be approved by the Department (on behalf of the Minister) even though such changes may have no impact on other users of the spectrum or the public at large. The planning process, although spelt out in the Draft Guidelines and later the TPPs, did not provide clear guidance as to how licensees should interpret them, and there was no widely available public database of Australia‑wide frequency assignments against which licensees could plan changes. As a result even small changes to specifications required considerable dialogue between the applicant and the regulator, with attendant high resource costs, a risk of somewhat arbitrary decisions, and time delays.