Summary

Amends the

to provide earlier access, in particular circumstances, to the digital commercial satellite television service known as the Viewer Access Satellite Television (VAST) by: enabling VAST licensees to provide their digital commercial satellite television services to specified external territories; enabling third party digital retransmission services to be taken into account for administering the conditional access scheme for VAST services; requiring licensees in certain licence areas to nominate multiple places against which their time based broadcasting obligations will be assessed; and enabling the minister to vary the date for digital switchover in a licence area or when that area becomes a digital only local market area.