This week’s spat between the Government and the ABC over bias and funding is a side show to the real policy question – digital television.
Scraps over bias and funding happen regularly. But when the ABC’s Managing Director, Russell Balding, told a Senate Estimates Committee that the ABC would close two digital services, Fly TV and ABC Kids, because of a funding shortfall, we got an insight into what a monumental foul-up the Government’s digital television policy has been.
Sure, it was a smart bit of politics for Balding to go for the jugular to prove his point on funding. It is a common bureaucratic tactic by statutory authorities when squeezed by Government – cut things which will have a huge impact and make the voters squeal. Kids don’t vote; but their parents and grandparents do. And the young audience of Fly votes.
But the significant point was not the going for the jugular. Rather it was what a pitifully small amount of money the ABC would save by closing these services – just $7 million.
Let’s put that another way. It costs just $7 million a year to put on two digital services. That is just a tenth of a cent a day. That is a lot of television content for a trivial amount of money when put against the ABC’s base budget of $500 million a year. To be fair, Fly and ABC Kids are really one digital service – they run alternately on the same spectrum, not together. Nevertheless, you get an extra channel of television for a small amount of money.
With digital broadcasting it is now technically possible for each of the five existing free-to-air broadcasters to put out three or four services each, along the lines of ABC Kids/Fly. The content need not be kids or youth it could be sport, news, drama, nature or movies. And following Balding’s statement we know they can do this for quite a small amount of money — $7 million a year per service plus some small extra costs for content which they have got bags of anyway. Having between 20 and 25 free-to-air services would be a wonderful addition to the average Australian’s television viewing choice – all technically possible and cheap as chips.
So why doesn’t it happen? Because the Government has made a complete hash of digital television, that’s why. Instead of asking what is best for viewers it asked what is best for the commercial television broadcasters – Kerry Packer’s Nine Network, Kerry Stokes’s Seven Network and the Ten Network.
These commercial broadcasters do not want 25 services. They want to compact the audiences and thereby compact the advertising they watch. One advertisement catches an average of a third of the commercial audience. Also the commercials would probably lose audience share to the ABC and SBS if the ABC and SBS were allowed to run five services each.
The Government effectively outlawed the prospect of 25 services when it legislated for digital television. It did this by insisting that each of the five free-to-air broadcasters broadcast in High Definition Digital for 20 hours a week. High Definition chews up nearly all the spectrum. If the Government had not insisted on High Definition and allowed Standard Definition instead, it would have been possible for the five broadcasters to put out four or five services in the same spectrum that High Definition occupies.
An advanced, economically developed nation like Australia (or at least its major cities) should have 20 free-to-air services as a matter of course. That it does not shows the Government has sold out viewer interest. The Government has been intimidated by the big commercial broadcasters, or it is sucking up to them, or both.
As a result, digital television in Australia is a dead dog. People very sensibly are not buying it. A pitiful 53,000 households in Australia have digital television out of 7.5 million households – less than 1 per cent. It is a joke.
According to the programs on the broadcasters’ own digital information website, this month, in the major cities, the ABC, SBS and the Ten network did not broadcast anything in High Definition digital. Seven and Nine had just two movies and Nine had some morning current affairs and some other bits as well. All the rest was ordinary TV or Standard Definition widescreen. Canberra, incidentally, has no High Definition digital. The above is. And we have to judge this by the pitiful amount of High Definition (not the total of widescreen broadcast) because the whole rationale (or irrationale) of the policy is based upon the requirement for High Definition. Widescreen Standard Definition could be done effectively under a multi-service or multi-channel regime.
We are denying viewers the real benefits of digital broadcasting – multi-channelling. And until that is delivered, viewers simply will not bother at all with digital. And who would blame them?
Besides, as things stand the benefits of High Definition are negligible anyway. New Scientist has reported that you cannot tell the difference once you are a few metres away – greater than four times the height of the screen. If you take a generous 78 cm screen it is 40 cm high so once you are 2.4 metres away (about average viewing distance) you cannot tell the difference. High Definition is only of value to people with a huge home cinema. We are denying people 20 or so extra channels for an illusory benefit.
This appalling policy flies in the face of the Government’s free-market principles. The Government should allow all five broadcasters to choose how they want to fill their spectrum. If High Definition is so wonderful no doubt the people will flock to it – all 53,000 of them. But if the ABC, SBS or one or two of the commercials decide to go for multi-channelling they should be allowed to do it. And the viewers would queue up for their digital sets or digital set-top boxes to get something worth buying – no more clashes between league and AFL and choices of nature, drama or continuous news.
If Labor wanted another point of difference it could put up a new digital television policy which put the viewers first. But don’t expect it. Labor under Hawke and Keating were just as guilty of sucking up to the big commercial television broadcasters as the present mob, or worse. And Packer and Stokes would eat Labor on the airwaves if it even thought about it.
In the meantime, viewers are being treated by the Government and commercial broadcasters with disdain and contempt.