Most people only think about this when the TV in one apartment stops working and nobody can say whose problem it is. Behind that is a decision somebody made years ago about how the whole building receives a signal, and if you sit on a body corporate committee or manage a building, it is probably a decision you will make again.
In most apartment buildings one shared aerial and satellite head-end feeds every unit, through an amplifier and coax that reticulates to each apartment. Hotels work differently. They combine aerial, satellite, and in-house entertainment through a multiplexer and send it to each room over Ethernet or fibre. The Conduction Company installs both.
The decision: one aerial per unit, or one shared system
The Conduction Company recommends one shared system on every multi-unit building it works on. A single aerial at the highest point of the building, aimed at the right terrestrial transmitter, with a satellite cable run alongside it. Both signals come down to an amplifier, and the amplifier feeds every apartment.
The alternative is an aerial per unit. Thirty units, thirty aerials, thirty roof penetrations to keep watertight, and thirty separate approvals to chase. It costs more in total and it gives a body corporate thirty times as much to go wrong.
The Conduction Company's comparison One aerial per unit One shared head-end
Hardware on the roof One aerial and possibly one dish per apartment One aerial and one dish for the whole building Total installed cost Higher. Every unit pays for its own hardware, its own penetration, and its own labour Lower per unit, because the expensive part is shared Roof penetrations to keep watertight One per unit One Who maintains it Each owner maintains their own Shared TV infrastructure serving more than one unit is the body corporate's repair and maintenance responsibility under the Unit Titles Act 2010, s 138(1)(d) When it fails One apartment loses TV Everyone on that amplifier loses TV at once Approval A separate approval for every owner who wants one One approval, dealt with as a building-wide project
What drives the cost is the building, not the TV. Height, how many floors the cable has to reach, whether there is a usable riser, and how much of the existing cabling is worth keeping. The Conduction Company prices a shared head-end after looking at the building, because two blocks with the same unit count can be very different jobs.
What a shared system actually looks like
The aerial and the dish sit at the top. Their cables run down to an amplifier, sometimes called a booster, which sits in a communications room. The amplifier has a terrestrial input and a satellite input, so both signals travel down the one cable to each apartment. From the amplifier the cabling reticulates out to every unit.
On a three-level block, The Conduction Company would fit a large roof aerial and a satellite dish at the top, a distribution amplifier on each level, and cabling spreading from each amplifier to the rooms on that level. On a tall building the same idea scales: one amplifier per level rather than one for the whole tower.
Coax and mains power often want the same riser, and they are not free to share one. AS/NZS 3000:2018 clause 3.9.8.3 allows low voltage and extra-low voltage cables in the same wiring system only under three named arrangements, one of which is running the low voltage cables in a separate compartment of a common trunking system with fixed and continuous barriers between compartments. The Conduction Company plans the riser around that at design stage rather than finding out about it on installation day.
What goes wrong, and what it looks like from inside a unit
Almost always the amplifier. In The Conduction Company's experience that is what causes a signal drop in a shared system, and it shows up in a very particular way: everybody on that amplifier loses TV at the same time. If a whole floor goes down at once and the unit next door is fine, you are not looking at thirty broken televisions. You are looking at one dead amplifier.
The second failure is stranger and worth knowing about, because it makes one resident's fault look like everyone's. An amplifier can overload from voltage a television pushes back down the coax, and when it does it cuts the signal to every other unit on that amplifier. Modern amplifiers are clever devices with built-in overload protection, but the symptom still reads as a building-wide fault.
The good news for a body corporate is that amplifiers are quick to swap. Once the fault is identified the replacement is fast and TV is back up shortly after. The expensive part is the time spent working out which amplifier it is, which is why a building that knows its own layout gets fixed faster than one that does not.
Where the aerial goes, and what decides it
Usually the highest point, or high on the side of the building. Height is not the whole answer though. The Conduction Company picks an aerial position on a multi-storey Auckland building around a list of things that most people never think about:
Clear line of sight to the transmitter. Everything else is a compromise around this.Reflections off bodies of water. A real problem in Auckland and a genuine cause of signal damage.4G towers. Aerials get pointed away from them to avoid interference.Tall trees. Foliage in the path has to be worked around.Chimneys and rooftop plant. Signal reflects off roof structures too, not just water.
There is one more consideration on a tall building, and it is a recommendation rather than a regulation, so nobody is breaking the law here. AS/NZS 1768:2007 clause 6.2.2 says a structure protected against lightning may carry an outdoor television receiving aerial without further precautions only where every part of the aerial system, supporting metalwork included, sits inside the zone of protection. Where it does not, the standard recommends connecting the aerial bracket structure to the lightning protection system at the nearest accessible point below the aerial, and says surge protection in the conductors should be considered. Clause 6.2.3 adds that on a building with no lightning protection at all, the need for it should be assessed before the aerial goes up. The Conduction Company asks about a building's lightning protection before mounting anything on its roof.
How a hotel TV system is different
Hotels are not apartments with more rooms. They are a different architecture.
A hotel still has an aerial and a satellite dish feeding an amplifier. The difference is what happens next: that feed goes into a multiplexer, which combines aerial, satellite, and in-house entertainment into one digital signal, and that signal is distributed to every room over Ethernet or fibre rather than coax. That is why a hotel television offers you movies, the room service menu, and your bill on screen, and an apartment television just gets channels.
The Conduction Company's comparison Apartment coax distribution Hotel multiplex distribution
What the head-end feeds An amplifier An amplifier, and then a multiplexer What reaches the room An RF signal on coax A digital signal on Ethernet or fibre What the viewer gets Broadcast channels Broadcast channels plus movies, menus, and in-house content on screen Cabling The Conduction Company runs Coaxial to each unit Data cabling to each room Who owns the equipment Usually the body corporate, once it serves more than one unit Usually the hotel owner or operator
Who has to get approval before anything is fixed to the roof
This section is general information, not legal advice, and it describes unit title buildings. Cross-lease and company share buildings have no body corporate at all, and Auckland has plenty of both. More on those below.
In a unit title building the roof, the exterior walls, and the shared risers are almost always common property, owned by the body corporate rather than by any one owner (Unit Titles Act 2010, s 54). An owner's own right to alter stops at the unit boundary (s 79(e)). Two duties then sit on the owner: they must notify the body corporate before starting any addition or structural alteration, with no materiality threshold at all so this bites even on work entirely inside their own unit (s 80(1)(h)), and they need the body corporate's written consent for anything that materially affects another unit or the common property (s 80(1)(i)).
The important word in all of that is owner . The registered owner applies. An installer cannot apply on your behalf and neither can a tenant. What The Conduction Company does is ask to see the written approval before it drills, because the person who pays for a leaking roof penetration is the owner, and s 127 of the Act lets a body corporate recover repair costs caused by an owner or their invitee, which is what a contractor is.
"The building manager said it was fine" is not approval
This is the trap worth knowing. Where the approval amounts to a licence to use common property, the Act reserves it to a 75 percent special resolution at a general meeting, with a 28 day objection period for every owner and interest holder (ss 56, 98, 212 to 216). And s 108(2)(b) says a body corporate must not delegate to its committee a matter the Act requires to be decided by special resolution. So in that situation the committee cannot say yes, and neither can a building manager, a body corporate manager, or a caretaker.
Nor should anyone assume approval will come. Section 82(2) expressly requires a head body corporate in a layered development not to unreasonably withhold consent. Section 80(1)(i) contains no equivalent duty. That contrast is deliberate, and it means a body corporate's refusal on an aerial or a dish is a much harder thing to argue with than people expect.
If your building is not a unit title
"Body corporate" only exists under the Unit Titles Act. On a cross-lease , you and the other flat owners own the land together and each lease your own flat from the group, so approval for exterior work comes from the other owners as your lessors, on the terms of your registered memorandum of lease (Land Transfer Act 2017, s 93(3)). Where the lease requires consent, the Property Law Act 2007, s 224 implies that it cannot be unreasonably withheld. On a company share building the company owns the whole thing and you hold shares plus a licence to occupy, so approval comes from the company's directors under its constitution. The principle is identical in all three: somebody else controls the roof. The paperwork is completely different.
Can a tenant put up their own satellite dish?
Not on their own, no, and this is where a lot of confusion sits.
It is a request The Conduction Company genuinely gets. People who have moved to New Zealand from overseas often want a dish in a specific orientation so they can pick up satellites serving their home country, and there is nothing unusual about wanting it.
The route is the problem. Under the Unit Titles Act a tenant is an occupier: bound by the building's operational rules (s 105(4)(c)), but with no right to alter and no route to apply for consent. Under the Residential Tenancies Act a tenant must not fix anything to the premises without the landlord's prior written consent (s 42), and the landlord cannot unreasonably refuse and has 21 days to answer (s 42A). The "minor changes" shortcut in s 42B will not rescue a dish either, because that test expressly excludes anything that compromises weathertightness or breaches a body corporate rule.
So the chain runs: the tenant asks the landlord, the landlord as registered owner applies to the body corporate, and only then does anyone get on the roof. An owner-occupier skips the first step, and that is the whole difference.
The one signal with a legal fast lane, and it is not television
New Zealand has no general right to receive a television signal that overrides a body corporate. The Broadcasting Act 1989 and the Radiocommunications Act 1989 say nothing about a resident installing an aerial or a dish, and the Bill of Rights Act applies only to government and public bodies (s 3), not to a body corporate. New Zealand has not adopted an overseas-style rule giving residents a right to install reception equipment.
Broadband is the exception. Since 2017 a fibre provider has a statutory right of access to shared property, and in a unit title or company share building the body corporate is treated as having consented unless it objects within 15 working days on a short list of grounds (Telecommunications Act 2001, especially ss 155R and 155T). That fast lane is fibre only. The Act allows other technologies to be added by regulation, and the Telecommunications (Property Access) Regulations 2017 prescribe none, so aerials, dishes, and coaxial TV distribution get nothing from it.
The practical read for a body corporate planning spend: if your building will not allow an aerial, streaming over fibre is usually the way through, because fibre is the one connection Parliament has given a statutory path into a multi-unit building. It is also why The Conduction Company runs data cabling alongside or instead of aerial reticulation on new work. A building with good data infrastructure has options a building with only coax does not. Aerial systems are still installed and maintained, and TV aerial and AV installation remains a core part of what The Conduction Company does.
What about hotels?
Most of the section above does not apply to a hotel. A hotel is normally one building with one owner, so there is no body corporate and the decision sits with the owner, or with the operator acting under the terms of its lease. Do check though. New Zealand has a long-standing model where hotel rooms are sold individually to investors on unit titles and leased back to the operator, and a hotel can also occupy part of a mixed-use unit titled tower. In either of those the roof and the facade are common property and the same rules apply as in an apartment block. Either way, the approval you need in writing is from whoever has authority over the building fabric, and it is worth establishing that before anybody quotes.
How often should a shared system be checked?
Annually at the least, is The Conduction Company's recommendation. That catches signal degradation, and anything new in the local environment that has started interfering with reception. This gear is hardy though, and The Conduction Company has seen shared systems run for many years with no attention and no issues at all. Annual checking is cheap insurance rather than a rescue operation.
The thing worth doing is not scheduling it on its own. While The Conduction Company is on site for the TV system it can check the networking equipment and everything else in the comms cabinet at the same time, and if the building already has a maintenance plan covering air conditioning or ventilation, all of it can be folded into one annual visit. A body corporate that does this stops paying for several separate call-outs a year. The Conduction Company builds the same kind of annual plan for its commercial building clients across Auckland.
Check your own building's rules
Every building is different. The Unit Titles Act contains no aerial rule at all, so the rule that actually decides this sits in your building's own documents, whether that is a body corporate's operational rules, a cross-lease memorandum, a company constitution, or a hotel's lease. A body corporate can change its operational rules by a simple majority vote at a general meeting at any time (s 106(3)(a)), so a rule that allowed dishes last year may not this year. Check yours, get any approval in writing before work starts, and take legal advice if there is real money or a real dispute in it. This article is general information, not legal advice.
Running a building with a TV system nobody has looked at in years, or planning one into a new block? The Conduction Company is happy to help. We will look at the building, tell you what is worth keeping, and give you a fixed price before anything starts.
Frequently asked questions
Does every apartment need its own TV aerial?
No. The Conduction Company recommends one shared aerial and satellite head-end for the whole building, feeding an amplifier which reticulates to every unit. It costs less in total, it puts one penetration in the roof instead of one per apartment, and it needs one approval rather than one per owner.
A whole floor lost TV at once. What is it?
Almost certainly the amplifier serving that floor. In The Conduction Company's experience amplifier faults are what cause signal drops in a shared system, and the giveaway is that everyone on one amplifier goes down together. An amplifier can also overload from voltage a television pushes back down the coax, which cuts the signal to everyone else on it. Replacement is quick once the fault is found.
Who has to get body corporate approval for a TV aerial or dish?
The registered owner of the unit. An installer cannot apply on your behalf and neither can a tenant. In a unit title building the owner must notify the body corporate before any addition or structural alteration (Unit Titles Act 2010, s 80(1)(h)) and needs written consent for anything materially affecting another unit or the common property (s 80(1)(i)). The Conduction Company asks to see that approval in writing before it drills.
Can a building manager approve a satellite dish?
Often not. Where the approval amounts to a licence to use common property, the Unit Titles Act reserves it to a 75 percent special resolution at a general meeting, and s 108(2)(b) prevents a body corporate delegating that to its committee. A verbal yes from a building manager, a caretaker, or a body corporate manager is not body corporate approval.
Is there any right to receive TV that overrides a body corporate?
No. The Broadcasting Act 1989 and the Radiocommunications Act 1989 say nothing about a resident installing an aerial or a dish. Fibre is the exception: since 2017 a body corporate is treated as having consented to a fibre installation unless it objects within 15 working days on limited grounds (Telecommunications Act 2001, ss 155R and 155T). That fast lane covers fibre only, not aerials or dishes.
How is a hotel TV system different from an apartment one?
An apartment system sends an RF signal over coax to each unit. A hotel feeds the aerial and satellite into an amplifier and then a multiplexer, which combines broadcast and in-house entertainment into one digital signal distributed over Ethernet or fibre. That is why hotel rooms have movies and menus on screen. The Conduction Company runs data cabling for hotel systems rather than coax.
