• Margaret Simons

07 June 2007Events are overtaking digital television, writes MARGARET SIMONS
ALMOST 30 per cent of Australian households now have digital free to air television, according to research released last week, and it is estimated that over 40 per cent of Australian households can receive digital TV if those who get their service piggy-backed with pay television are included.

These are vital statistics for those interested in media diversity. On the face of it, the figures are cause for optimism ? but there are still plenty of worms in the apple.

Digital television adoption matters for media diversity because once enough Australians have adopted the technology, the analogue television signal will be able to be switched off. Because digital signals use spectrum much more efficiently, swathes of spectrum will be opened up. Existing broadcasters will be able to offer multiple channels, and there will also be the possibility of new services from innovative new players.

This may offset what is likely to be the ruthless and deadening hand of the private equity firms who, since James Packer?s sale of Channel Nine, will dominate free to air television in this country. Private equity companies will now control Channel Nine, own half of Channel Seven and are likely to own Channel Ten, presently up for sale, as well.

Digital television uptake also has implications for community television, as detailed in this story in the Australian?s Media section last week. More on this later.

At present the government plans to switch off the analogue signal between 2010 and 2012, but there has been much industry speculation as to whether this will be possible. Once the analogue signal is switched off most television sets in Australia will become useless unless people buy a set-top box to enable them to receive digital signals. Obviously it will be politically and practically impossible to achieve switch-off until the vast majority of Australians have digital technology.

All this is part of a sad and sorry history of digital television in Australia, in which the government has tried to push Australians into buying the new technology while protecting media mates by hobbling the full advantages of the new technology. The Packer empire, in particular, wanted the existing business model of free to air television protected from the fragmentation of the audience that digital broadcasting would bring. As a result of Packer lobbying existing free to air channels have until recently been prohibited from offering new multichannels. The public broadcasters ? the ABC and SBS ? were allowed to multichannel, but were subject to ridiculously heavy genre restrictions.

But now the government is moving, painfully slowly, towards allowing new content and new services, and people are apparently responding. The new figures on digital uptake released by the Australian Communications and Media Authority represent a doubling of households able to receive digital television since 2005.

But the devil is in the detail. The issue is not only how many households can receive digital television, but how many televisions can do so, given that most households these days have at least two sets. The ACMA figures show that only 17 per cent of the televisions in Australia are capable of receiving digital television. Meanwhile 40 per cent of households don?t know digital television is available in their area, and a third don?t even know the analogue signal will one day be switched off.

There is a long way to go before analogue switch off will be achievable. On the current government plan, all these people will have to be educated and convinced to go out and spend a minimum of $60 per television on digital technology before 2010?12.

The government has set up a new body, Digital Australia, to try to educate Australian consumers and drive the switch over, but can it be done in time? Meanwhile Labor has pledged to abolish Digital Australia to save money should it take government ? without offering an alternative method of driving digital uptake.

So will we get to analogue switch-off in time? There are reasons to hope. Now ABC 2 is free of genre restrictions it has become a significant driver of digital uptake. The ABC hopes that government will fund a new free to air digital children?s channel. This would certainly encourage parents to invest in the new technology. As well, Channel Seven is seeking a back door into the pay television industry with a plan to offer multichannels on a subscription basis. Nevertheless there are only two and a half years to go until 2010, and even if the present rate of uptake continues many televisions will still be analogue only at that date.

Meanwhile community television, surely the most diverse if not the most polished of offerings on the airwaves, is suffering a slow ?fade out? as more people switch to digital, because it transmits only in analogue. Despite a long campaign, the government has yet to allocate any spectrum for digital community television, but has encouraged the sector to try and strike a deal with an existing commercial broadcaster to carry their signal. Not surprisingly, none are willing. The government is also trying to wrap carrying community television into the conditions for the new datacasting licences to be auctioned later this year ? but once again, no private operator is likely to come the party unless the government makes it worth their while.

The only other option would be for community television to go straight to digital, but without a period of simulcasting in both digital and analogue, this would mean most of the audience would disappear overnight. Effectively, this would be the death of community television.

The ACMA research on digital broadcasting uptake contains another interesting statistic. A quarter of Australian households have now downloaded or streamed audio-visual media content from the internet. Once Australia has decent internet speeds, the attraction of digital television will be reduced. We will get what we want from the internet ? the ultimate menu of endless choices.

No wonder Packer is getting out of Channel Nine, and the private equity companies are looking only five years ahead. The days of truly mass media ? of Australian families gathering around a single screen ? are, one way or another, coming to an end. ?

Margaret Simons is a freelance journalist and author. Her new book about the media will be published later this year by Penguin.

Photo: Jon Helgason/iStockphoto.com