Merry Christmas everyone. This time next year maybe you will be buying a new television set.
The television networks (particularly the Packer family), however, got their Christmas present this year with the Government’s announcement of the ground rules for the introduction of digital television. It has made the Murdoch family hopping mad.
The decision follows a long line of poor decision making by Federal Governments of both sides since television was first introduced in 1956.
The decision comes about because new digital technology enables many more signals to be broadcast over the existing spectrum.
The main elements of the decision are:
Digital television to be introduced on January 1, 2001, in the mainland state capitals.
Existing five free-to-air networks (ABC, SBS and the three commercials) must broadcast standard-definition digital all the time.
Existing networks must broadcast analogue for existing TV sets for eight years.
They must broadcast 20 hours a week of high-definition television. SBS, though, is exempt from this requirement.
They can provide enhanced services like different camera angles, text windows and can split the signal to give viewers a choice of watching, say, the end of a test match or crossing to the news, but otherwise they must not split the signal to run full dual or triple programming.
The ABC and SBS may get an exemption from the split-signal ban for educational and community programs. This is to be decided next year.
No new free-to-air player can come into the market until December 2006.
The remaining spectrum is to be auctioned to two or more players for datacasting.
Datacasting is to be strictly controlled and must not include anything remotely like a television program, with the exception of 10 minute news summaries. It will be text, still pictures and some limited video which users can search and pull up what they want when they want it. Fast internet, in other words.
In all, it sounds like a comprehensive set of proposals.
But let us look at the folly and favouritism of the plan and how it will ill-serve the viewing public but well-serve Kerry Packer and the existing networks.
Let us also see how the fawning to Packer will not do the Government any good, just as the earlier fawning to media moguls by the Hawke and Keating Governments did them no good.
But first an explanation of standard- and high-definition television. These are very misleading terms.
“”Standard” implies mediocrity so that you really would want “”high”.
In fact, standard definition digital is very high quality indeed. You get all ghosting eliminated; 5×3 format (as against the squarer 4×3 present format); the ability to get text, datacasts, multichannelling, extra camera angles; high-quality stereo sound and so on. A standard digital set will cost $2000 or so.
High-definition is cinema quality. It is unnecessarily good in the average Australian home. It should be called “”ultra” or “”mega”. A high-definition set will cost about $10,000 or so.
The Government, in its infinite wisdom, has looked into its crystal ball. It has guessed there will be enough demand to warrant 20 hours a week of high definition. But what if virtually no-one buys high-definition sets, especially after they see how good and how much cheaper standard definition is? It will be wasted.
The 20 hours a week will be mostly prime-time stuff and movies, because movies are easily converted to high-definition and new stuff (newly recorded in high definition) is shown in prime time. But high definition consumes a lot of spectrum.
The Government has therefore concentrated the spectrum into a single pretty picture in prime time. The technology, on the other hand, would have permitted 15 or more programs instead of the current five in standard definition.
Note SBS is to be exempt for the 20 hours of high-definition television. Why? Because so many of its programs come from Europe which does not make high definition material. So if Europe does not have high-definition why is Australia wasting resources on it.
The reason is that the Government wants to pander to Packer and the other two commercial networks. They much prefer to continue with the existing monopoly position and only three commercial free-to-air program schedules. That way all the advertisements and audiences can be nicely concentrated with the minimum of diversity and variety.
The government has turned its back on a wonderful opportunity to replace the existing three commercial and two public channels with nine commercial and six public channels. All in the name of giving a very few people the chance to spend $10,000 to put the equivalent of a cinema in their loungeroom. It is absurd.
In the US high-definition has been a complete flop.
At the other end of the scale, the Government has been keen not to offend the battlers. You can keep you existing telly with its five channels for eight years before the analogue signal is stopped.
Once again, this is silly. What if the huge majority of Australians buy standard-definition digital TV sets or at least the converters in the first couple of years? We would be wasting spectrum of an old technology.
The Government has guessed what the demands will be. It will probably be wrong. The Government should have allowed the commercial and public networks to make their own decisions about what signal to broadcast in their allotted spectrum.
Why didn’t the Government take that sensible option? Because the ABC and SBS would have immediately abandoned high-definition. They would have split their signal into two or three standard definition signals and some datacasting and phased out analogue rapidly. The commercials would have screamed as the public broadcasters took their audiences with extra programming.
This week’s decision is all about concentrating the mass market to make it as easy a possible for the existing networks to keep their advertising revenues. Too bad for the viewers. You just get the same old crap but in a pretty picture.
The Government justifies this because the change to digital will be expensive so the networks should get a hand. This argument is drivel. What other industry gets a government freebie or government-granted monopoly just because technology changes? But then the Government is scared of the big players in this industry, like no other.
Also the Government has presumed the technology will stay the same. Bear in mind that the technology it is dealing with now was hardly thought of eight years ago — the time frame it is working with in this proposal. The technology will change and make the decision obsolete. For example, ACTEW is cabling Canberra with technology that will deliver television and data.
All this prescription by Government spells trouble. If (or when) it unravels the commercial networks will say to the Government: “”You got us into this mess, you bail us out.”
It also spells trouble for the Government because the Murdochs will not take it lying down. They want a slice of the television action either through datacasting or through another commercial network. The spectrum and technology will allow it. The viewing public would get more choice. But the Government wants to favour the existing television players.
The Murdoch-owned Daily Telegraph leapt to the cause. It will turn up the heat no doubt as it has done in the past. The Government, and particularly Prime Minister John Howard, will had to weigh up who it should offend the least: the Murdochs or the Packers. The Telegraph is the paper of the NSW battlers, an audience very important to Howard.
The Murdochs have not been shy in the past of using their media outlets to pursue their business aims.
This week’s decision is already a change in the Government digital TV position slightly more favourable to the Murdochs after their newspapers put the pressure on. Judging from the Telegraph it was not enough. Watch the pressure. Watch out for some changes in digital television policy that will be more favourable to the Murdochs. It may result in a better regime for viewers, but it will be for the wrong reasons.