Our Story

A television transmitter, built by engineering student Martin Schneeberger in 1985 for his final year project, became the catalyst for RMITV. The following year he decided to create a TV station for his transmitter, rather than leave it redundant. Shows were produced by journalism and media students and transmitted from within the university’s city campus, and only to the campus.

The temptation to develop a real community television station, in the same way that radio had been doing since the first community radio station in Australia was licensed in 1972, proved strong. An application was made for a broadcasting licence but, meeting with resistance from the federal government Schneeberger teamed up with Steve Middleton from Footscray University and John Saradon from Saint Kilda Access (SKA). They told Channel 10 they were going to establish a pirate station, and were subsequently interviewed by Mal Walden for the news. What the Channel 10 news crew found was three students with a pirate flag wearing balaclavas and insisting no one could stop them establishing a pirate station.

The interview made for a good news story and the following year, in 1987, the government provided three temporary licences to community stations providing for two hours of broadcast time every two weeks for two years. The fledgling RMITV had no content to air so Schneeberger spoke to the journalism students and two news programs were produced – Red Eye News and Newsline, aired from the top of the RMIT city campus to the nearby suburbs of North Melbourne, Brunswick, Carlton and Fitzroy.

The transmitter was moved several times over the next few years, eventually ending up transmitting from the Doncaster Shoppingtown tower in 1993. Later in 1987 two other shows were produced: The World Is Not Round (the name was later changed to Under Melbourne Tonight) and Seizure. RMITV hired equipment from the media department. Other community television organisations included SKA who broadcast from the Prince of Wales hotel, followed shortly by RAT – Richmond Access Television.

RMITV was the first community television station in Australia to receive a test transmission permit from the government. The growth of community television stations in Melbourne [SKA in 1988, RAT soon after, NAT in 1990 and Bent TV after 1993] gave rise to a plan for a conglomeration able to provide year round content. The conditions of a community television licence differ from commercial licenses in that programming is only for community, educational and non-profit purposes and is to be produced by private citizens under an open narrowcast class licence.

The organisations joined in 1990 to form the Melbourne Community Television Consortium [MCTC] and lobbied for a trial community broadcasting license, which was issued in 1994. Melbourne Community Television Channel 31, shortened to MCT-31, began evening broadcasts on 6 October that year. In 2001 they began daytime broadcasting as well, and in 2004 24-hour broadcasting began and a permanent community broadcasting licence was issued.