This article is divided into the following sections:

Types of coverage area National Metropolitan Regional Remote Legal issues

Types of coverage area

1. National

Stations that possess a national coverage area licence are permitted to transmit their programmes nationwide (i.e. all Australian States and internal & external Territories (excluding the Australian Antarctic claim)).

The ABC and SBS can be considered to possess national coverage area licences and are therefore referred to as national broadcasters.

Technically speaking, the national broadcasters' services cover one licence area. In practice, however, the national broadcasters subdivide their services into "sub-licence areas" either by time zone (SBS) or by State/Territory (ABC). By doing this, the national broadcasters are able to localise their services to meet the needs of the people within the sub-licence areas - the ABC tends to take advantage of this moreso than SBS by producing and screening state-based news, current affairs and sports programmes; SBS tends to stick to a common, nationwide programming schedule (albeit time-shifted), except when screening live broadcasts.

The national broadcasters are largely Government-funded (with some commercial interests such as ABC Shops) and thus do not directly compete with the commercial stations that depend on advertising to survive.

2. Metropolitan

Stations that possess a metropolitan coverage area licence are only allowed to broadcast within the metropolitan areas of the cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide.

Seven, Nine and Ten are the three commercial stations, plus the various community stations transmitting on UHF channel 31, that have metropolitan coverage area licences.

Since the introduction of television to Australia in 1956, a maximum of three commercial stations have been permitted to broadcast concurrently within metropolitan licence areas and thus provide competing services, as the various Commonwealth Government authorities responsible for the allocation of broadcasting licences over the years have deemed it economically viable for three commercial stations to operate within the metropolitan licence areas.

3. Regional

Stations that possess a regional coverage area licence are only allowed to broadcast outside of the metropolitan areas of the cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide - this includes the cities of Canberra, Hobart and Darwin and also other non-metropolitan areas with substantial populations.

Commercial stations such as Prime, WIN and Southern Cross Ten are considered to have regional coverage area licences.

Traditionally, the outer-metropolitan areas would be split into smaller coverage areas, intended for a particular region. Each region would be served by one commercial station only, since the population for a regional coverage area would be considerably smaller than that of a metropolitan coverage area and thus would be unable to support competing commercial services. The sole commercial service would produce local programming in-house and source its programmes from the three metropolitan coverage area-based commercial stations.

Nowadays, neighbouring regional coverage areas have consolidated (or aggregated) themselves into larger areas and are therefore now able to provide competing commercial services. The commercial services still source their programmes from the metropolitan stations, however, they now tend to affiliate themselves to just one station, adopting the station's schedule and supplementing it with locally based programming, essentially acting as a feed of the metropolitan station.

4. Remote

Stations that possess a remote coverage area licence are only allowed to broadcast in areas not already served by (a) regional service(s), or in special cases, inadequately served - roughly two-thirds of Australia's landmass with a combined population of roughly half a million people. The primary means of transmission is via satellite. The service may be received direct-to-home by an individual with a satellite dish and decoder or terrestrially via a self-help transmitter that re-broadcasts the satellite signal to small remote communities. In all other respects, remote coverage areas are the same as regional coverage areas.

Commercial stations such as GWN and Imparja are considered to have remote coverage area licences.

Legal issues

Generally speaking, it is illegal in Australia to receive programming intended for a coverage area other than the area a signal receiver is physically located. If, for example, one attempts to receive a satellite broadcast of a remote-area or interstate channel and/or is not located within the coverage area and/or is decrypting the signal with an unauthorised decryption device, this would be considered to be illegal.

However, due to the nature of terrestrial, free-to-air broadcasts, it is possible for a station's broadcast intended for a particular coverage area to be received from another coverage area - the Australian Communications and Media Authority define this as fortuitious reception and is considered to be perfectly legal. Many people, particularly in the metropolitan areas, have taken advantage of this by installing roof-top aerials that are capable of receiving clear pictures and sound of out-of-area channels, so that they are able to watch live sports events not being covered on their local channels. It is still a common sight in regional coverage areas to find larger than usual antennae installed - a legacy of pre-aggregation when people living in regional areas wanted more programming choices.