Forget Blu-ray and HD DVD, why is digital TV such a disaster?

Adam Turner
Wednesday, 14 February 2007 21:06

Opinion and Analysis

Content is king when it comes to new technology but - multiple angles aside - there was nothing on digital television you couldn't already watch on analogue. The government banned starting up new networks or existing commercial networks creating new channels, known as "multi-channeling". Admittedly this was all done at the request of the existing networks who didn't want the competition.

For the same reasons the government created such tight regulations for datacasting that no-one bothered to do it. As such, multi-angle broadcasting was the closest thing there was to original content on Australian digital television. After an initial flurry during sporting events, networks didn't bother with multi-angle broadcasting anymore - so digital television just offered more of the same old same old.

The government broadcasters dipped their toes into multi-channeling. The ABC ran two niche digital channels, ABC Kids and Fly, but they only lasted two years. ABC2 and SBS2 were only launched in the last few years and have scant original programming, with tight content restrictions only lifted recently. The commercial stations been permitted to multi-channel this year, and only in high definition, but none have done so yet.

The next best thing to original content is the ability to shift around the existing content. Personal Video Recorders let viewers watch programs when it suits them, but paranoia over piracy stalled the introduction of digital television recorders for more than five years. Early on I confronted more than one manufacturer about this, only to be told "off the record" that the government wouldn't let them import them - assumingly for fear of a backlash from the powerful media moguls that owned the television networks.

An Electronic Program Guide is a fundamental component of a decent PVR, but the networks have killed this as well. Most recorders have the ability to extract a seven day program guide from the broadcast signal, allowing you to browse through the week's viewing and select programs in advance for recording. The networks refuse to broadcast such information in a format PVRs can read, and Nine has gone as far as suing Ice TV for daring to produce its own EPG.

So there's very little new content, very little flexibility and very little incentive for the world's major manufacturers to build devices for Australia's tiny market. It's a wonder digital television has made it this far.

Despite the fact 75 per cent of Australian lounge rooms still haven't moved to digital, the Australian government plans to switch off analogue broadcasts in 2012 (it was originally 2008). Communications Minister Helen Coonan said on television late last year she was determined to start switching of analogue television in 2010.

Coonan also had the audacity to call herself a "friend of the consumer" ensuring "we won't be left behind in some sort of digital dark age". Lucky I don't keep guns in the house or I'd need a new telly. With a government this deluded, and commercial television networks happy to play along to maintain the status quo, is it any wonder three-quarters of Australia hasn't bothered with digital television?