… with NBN and everyone accessing broadcast services that way, we are wondering about closing down the barely functioning TV aerial system.
Your Foxtel client residents can access the service via NBN. I switched to Foxtel’s online service about a year ago and sent the set-top box back. It’s a lot cheaper and the only drawback is that I can’t record Foxtel shows, but I can watch them via the “on demand” service.
If residents want the free-to-air digital service, perhaps you can cable them individually. I only use the digital free-to-air signal so I can record three shows – that is, there are only three free-to-air shows that I want to record, and that’s only because I want to whizz through the ads.
Otherwise I watch them on the various channels’ catch-up services (although I have to say that Channel Nine’s practise of putting an ad break after every single scene of “Something About Pam” is killing the show for me).
But it seems to me if you don’t have a strata management statement, then you can do what you (or the majority of owners) want. I don’t know of any legal requirement to provide free-to-air TV via and aerial.
Present the owners with all the options, including a breakdown of the actual costs it will add to each apartment’s levies to reinstall free to air for everyone – remembering to explain that because of the way levies work, even if individual owners owners don’t want it, they still have to pay for it.
You may find you have an overwhelming majority in favour of dispensing with the antenna altogether.