A community-based television group has been offered licences for UHF frequencies reserved for non-commercial television broadcasting in the Waikato and Bay of Plenty regions, Minister of Communications Maurice Williamson and Minister for Culture and Heritage Marie Hasler announced today.

The licences have been offered to Unicom Television, which proposes to establish a channel providing a wide range of programming produced by the community for an audience as extensive as possible.

"This is an exciting opportunity for the development of new television services in these regions that should provide a diverse range of educational and community-based programming," the Ministers said.

"Unicom Television's proposal has a strong focus on access for local programme makers and includes a range of other non-commercial programming not being provided at a national level."

A number of UHF frequencies have been reserved throughout the country for use by non-commercial broadcasters. This is part of a range of measures adopted to ensure that public broadcasting objectives that are not provided by commercial broadcasters, are still met.

ENDS

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