[IP] Digital TV
Begin forwarded message:
From: Alan Kohler <ak@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: June 23, 2005 11:04:04 PM EDT
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Digital TV
Dave,
For IP if you like... it's my column in the Sydney Morning Herald
this week
Digital TV falls into the wrong hands
By Alan Kohler
June 22, 2005
At the current rate of take-up of digital television in Australia,
the last analog TV set will be turned off in August 2057.
Another way of looking at this is that when analog transmissions
cease in 2008, approximately 22.6 million television sets and VCRs
across the nation will go black.
Now I'm no political pundit but even a finance columnist can predict
that when, or rather if, this happens, whichever party is in power -
i.e. the Coalition - will become what is technically known in
politics as toast. It would make Denis Burke and the Northern
Territory Country Liberal Party look like winners.
This looming train wreck is the subject of an inquiry by the House of
Representatives Committee on Information Technology and the Arts,
chaired by Jackie Kelly. Submissions are being taken and public
hearings held.
But we can already predict the contents of the final report: it will
consist of Jackie Kelly standing on the railway tracks and waving a
red flag, screaming: "THE BRIDGE IS OUT. STOP THE TRAIN!"
But the train can't be stopped. Digital TV has been going for four
years and millions, perhaps, billions, have been spent on equipment;
770,000 set-top boxes have been sold and they are shuffling out of
the stores at 40,000 a month; 20 hours per week of high-definition TV
has been mandated and is being filmed and broadcast; analog
transmission is due to be turned off in 2008.
But it won't be.
The submissions to Jackie Kelly's committee make amusing reading.
They fall into two groups: the television industry - that is,
broadcasters and manufacturers - pumping up digital TV and patiently
explaining that it is a good thing, versus individuals asking why the
hell they should bother with it and patiently saying why it won't
work. (There is a third group of one, the Australian Consumers
Association, bellowing "I told you so!" into a howling gale of vested
interest.)
Wrote one JC McKenzie, in a scrawled, handwritten note: "I recently
spent a lot of money on a new TV which will see me out - say to 2020.
My previous TV set lasted that long and I expect a repeat. Now they
tell me that analog TV will be gone in two or three years. That, I
must say, strikes me as morally grotesque."
It's a fair bet that JC McKenzie watches quite a bit of TV and would
be very inclined to vote for any politician who promises not to make
it go black or to make him buy a new one.
Here's another anonymous, individual submission: "Digital TV has been
broadcast for the past four to five years offering better, clearer
pictures and sound for all of this time. It is clear that this will
NOT encourage migration to this format."
Quite right. Last year your columnist went to the local appliance
store and bought a digital set-top box with, I must say, some
excitement. I had bought a high-definition Panasonic set (not plasma
- a tube) two years ago with the idea of "future-proofing". I'd be
good and ready when the world changed.
I blush slightly to admit that our house has three working TV sets,
two of which are connected to Foxtel boxes (for the business channels
you understand, not for watching Seinfeld when there's nothing on the
ABC).
Anyway, for the first couple of months I routinely used to switch to
the digital box from the usual thing of watching free-to-air channels
via Foxtel whenever something came on in high-definition - mainly
American crime shows. And sometimes if there was a movie or a concert
that needed better sound I switched it to digital and put the sound
through the big speakers.
Now I can't be bothered. The digital set-top box I bought for $199
sits forlorn and lifeless on the TV sandwiched between the Foxtel box
and the DVD player. Sure, the high-definition picture is better and
the widescreen is nice, but it's not that much better. It's just OK.
And it's just too much trouble fiddling with the remotes and
switching it over while less discerning members of the family moan
and grizzle.
The second TV set in the family room just has Foxtel, no digital box,
and a teenager glued to it watching The Simpsons or Friends. The
third set, in one of the bedrooms, has nothing - it's just an analog
set with a VCR, and is used as a refuge, escaping the soapies.
The Kohlers are typical of perhaps a million households, although
many people sensibly have Foxtel in one room and digital free-to-air
in another.
The average penetration is apparently 2.4 TVs per households, plus at
least one, often two, analog VCRs that sit between the aerial and a
TV. This means about 25 million units rely on analog transmission.
How many of these will the Government allow to go black when analog
transmission is turned off? Ten million? Hardly. One million? That'll
be 2049, rather than 2057.
The whole thing would be funny if it wasn't such a rort. Colossal
amounts of scarce community spectrum are being hogged by a
broadcasting industry that wants to make sure no one else gets it,
and by a Government that wants whatever the broadcasting industry
tells it to want.
Each network should be given one, maybe two, digital channels. All
the rest - including the analog spectrum - should be auctioned to new
players and the proceeds used to fund a subsidised, mandated digital
switchover in, say, 2010.
Waiting until Australians have all bought a digital TV of their own
accord will mean allowing the spectrum to be hogged for decades to come.
mail@alankohler
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