Peter McArthur, Channel 31 membership committee chairman and producer of Eastern News Beat, said the Federal Government had not supported the station in its attempts to move over to digital television.

"We have a situation where we're one of the six free-to-air stations in Melbourne and we're the only ones who haven't been allowed to go digital. Possibly because we are community [television]."

Eastern News Beat runs twice a week and covers news and issues from Melbourne's eastern suburbs. Mr McArthur, of Croydon South, said the station had been promised it would be allowed to go digital before the switch-off date for analog television in metropolitan Melbourne, in the second half of 2013.

He fears that may be too late.

"We don't want to be laying off staff and working out of a shop front by the time we get there."

He said Channel 31 ratings had dropped since the Government started urging people to buy set-top boxes or digital television sets.

While a range of new channels, such as ABC2, One HD and GO!, as well as all current free-to-air channels, are available on digital television, Channel 31 is not.

"We can foresee that if we don't do something fairly quickly, people will forget about Channel 31."

Mr McArthur said the switch-over from analog to digital would cost Channel 31 between $1.5million and $2million for its Melbourne station.

He said all that the station wanted was permission to transmit in digital.