Free-to-air TV towers to be decommissioned

The Alexander Range broadcast television tower will be decommissioned immediately while the Daintree Village tower’s days are numbered and it will be switched off on 30 June 2022.

The Alexander Range tower, which services Cow Bay and Diwan, has been inactive for over 12 months and will be officially decommissioned after council passed the resolution at Tuesday’s ordinary council meeting.

Douglas Shire Council said that the towers are too expensive to justify their ongoing maintenance and repairs when most residents have other alternatives to free-to-air television.

Council said it intends to survey residents of Shannonvale and Cassowary in the coming weeks to ascertain how many of them watch free to air television and whether the $30,000 cost of servicing the South Mossman tower is justified.

In May 2011, Cairns Regional Council made the decision to upgrade the South Mossman, Daintree, and Alexander Range re-transmission sites to digital, instead of opting into the Federal Government’s Viewer Access Satellite Television (Vast).

Since that time, due to a lack of spare parts, lack of service agreements with any reliable supplier and changes to broadcast technology, there has been a significant drop in the level of service.

“It's been 30 odd years since they were installed and the federal government hasn’t put any further funding towards these towers. These towers haven’t been upgraded by anyone except council and of course television has changed a lot in that time,” Douglas Shire Mayor Michael Kerr told Fab FM’s Paul Makin.

“It’s too hard for council to be forking out hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep upgrading and maintaining these towers. This is the state and federal governments’ job to be funding this, not council.

More information can be found on Council’s website.