In the early 1970s, the Australia Council, Australia's official arts funding organisation, worked together with various community groups to establish a number of video production centres that could be used to produce television programs. Many people began using these production centres, as well as their own resources, to make television programs.

But there was a problem. Once the programs had been made, it was difficult to get them shown on commercial or government-funded television. The people who ran these television stations thought that the programs were too short, or too long, or too different from the kind of programs that television stations were already showing.
While community radio stations were quickly established around Australia, community television took longer to develop. This was because producing television programs and running television stations is a much more expensive process. It wasn't until 1984 that a community group based in Perth applied for a community television licence, and that application was unsuccessful. In the late 1980s Imparja Television (now a commercial station), based in Alice Springs, was established. A few years later, RMITV was set up by students at RMIT University in Melbourne and became the first community television station to receive a test transmission permit.

In 1992, the Government asked the ABA to conduct a trial of community television using the vacant sixth television channel (UHF 31 in capital cities). Community television services have been provided on a trial basis since 1994 under the open narrowcast 'class licence'. These licences are issued on the condition that they are used only for community and educational non-profit purposes. Currently, these class licences are held in Melbourne, Brisbane, Lismore and Adelaide .

In 2002, the legislation was changed to introduce new community television licences and in 2004 the first licences were issued in Sydney, Perth, Melbourne and Brisbane.