Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support this report of the Standing Committee on Communications, Information Technology and the Arts into the uptake of digital television in Australia, Digital television: who’s buying it? It is a unanimous report, I am pleased to say, into this extremely vital area. I am very pleased to be able to do this today, the first day of this new, improved process for committee members that will allow members of the House far greater input into these important processes of the House. I will try not to be disorderly, Mr Deputy Speaker, in case I am the first person removed from the Committee. It might be difficult; it is a very contentious issue that we are discussing today.

The government discussed the roll-out process for digital television, the change from analog to digital, back in 1998 when it legislated a time frame for the industry to convert from analog to digital. It required that commercial and free-to-air broadcasters commence digital broadcasting on 1 January 2001 in capital cities and in regional areas between then and January 2004. The stations were required to broadcast in both analog and digital for around eight years until the analog signal was switched off at the end of 2008 in capital cities and eight years after the digital switch on in regional markets, effectively making the switch-off in regional areas about four years later. The stations had to broadcast a minimum of 1,040 transmission hours per annum of HDTV—high-definition TV—and restrictions were put in place as to what they could do with the digital spectrum. For example, there was no multichannelling except for the ABC and SBS, which could provide one digital channel but were excluded from showing news, current events and sport.

It is now 2006, some five years in from the original eight-year plan, and the take-up has been slow. There have been several reasons given for the slow take-up and it is appropriate to say that some of that is simply due to technical issues in the early days. There was no digital consumer equipment available in the Australian market on 1 January 2001; so, while it was a necessity for stations to start broadcasting, it was very difficult for consumers to receive the signal. The first digital set-top boxes were underwritten by the commercial broadcasters and arrived in early 2001. In accordance with the roll-out schedule, initial coverage was limited and most areas of metropolitan markets could not receive the signal until late 2003. This meant that a digital set-top box might work in one part of a market and not in another. There has also been considerable talk of the difficulty with additional content. The Seven Network, for example, claimed that the primary reason for the low take-up of DTV in Australia was the lack of a clear value proposition for consumers as the content on the digital channels was very much the same as that on the analog channels.

The Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance and the Australian Film Commission both talked of the need for content to drive take-up. The Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance in particular remarked that, given that Australians have long been known as very fast adopters of new technology, the fact that take-up of digital services has been so slow indicates that what is on offer—enhanced picture and sound quality—is nowhere near sufficiently attractive to drive the decision to acquire a set-top box. The Australian Consumers Association argued that there was not an attractive proposition to motivate consumers. There was a paucity of receivers, the equipment was difficult to understand and there was very little consumer understanding of the technology.

No doubt the technology is now available. In fact, over 80 per cent of houses receive all digital channels and 95 per cent of houses receive at least one, yet take-up is still slow. In fact, less than 10 per cent of houses have transferred from analog to digital, five years into the proposed changeover period, given that in most of those houses where there is a digital television there is an old analog television sitting in the back bedroom. Again, considering that the proposed switch-off is at the end of 2008—less than three years away—only around five per cent of Australian televisions have been made digital-ready.

Nevertheless, we must understand that there is a great need for Australia to keep pace with changing technology in the television market, even if Australian consumers at this point seem to be a little slow on the uptake. Australia is a great innovator of product. We have a strong creative group of producers in this country who produce excellent film and television for around the world. It is important for them, if not for consumers, that we keep pace with change around the world.

In the United States at the moment, for example, 70 per cent of their free-to-air content is high definition television. Australia simply cannot keep pace as a user or provider of international content unless we take very serious action. Of course, television is not just a business of entertainment either. Now, along with radio and print media, it is a vital part of the way that the community shares information—what we know about ourselves and our common everyday stories—with each other. This puts television into another sphere of cultural significance. That does not mean that any particular station needs to fulfil the entire community role, but we in government need to ensure that there is a range of suppliers of information and, more importantly, that there is diversity in the kind of information provided. We also support, as I said before, a very strong film and television industry. Most people do not realise that it is the television industry that financially supports the film industry for much of its life.

To some extent we found ourselves in the committee making policy on the run. Changes to cross-media ownership have been in the ether. There have been rumours about decisions to be brought down very soon, about changes to the digital television rules in regional Australia and, even as we were meeting with industry representatives, talk by the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts of coming to a decision prior to the conclusions of this committee. So it was somewhat difficult in a time of uncertainty to consider these important issues. Certainty is of course extremely important to the industry itself and to consumers. We also had to consider regional areas very carefully. Regional companies are already claiming that the simulcast of digital and analog is putting an extraordinary drain on their services. Whilst the large free-to-air companies in the cities are comfortable to some extent with simulcast, the regional companies are doing it very tough, and we were reluctant to add to their burden by delaying the switch-off any further.

The committee  made a number of recommendations that free up the environment for broadcasters and provide some certainty for both industry and consumers. The first part concerns the switch-off date, setting a very firm switch-off date of 1 January 2010, a bit over a year later than the original date. Several submissions to the inquiry stated that a definite analog switch-off date will drive the take-up of digital television in Australia. Certainly, we found that many consumers were unaware of this and that there is a need for the industry to widely promote the definite switch-off date. SBS believes, for example, that increased public awareness of a certain analog switch-off date will provide a particular incentive for digital take-up. Several consumers mentioned in their submission that they were waiting for new technology or for a later date—they were waiting till the last minute— before making a decision. The fixed date of 2010 and the second recommendation which follows it, which suggests that the government commission an independent study into Australia’s current spectrum allocation, sets the boundaries well and truly for the industry as well and makes it really clear that the additional spectrum which the free-to-air providers are carrying at the moment for the simulcast will be removed at the switch-off date of January 2010.

There are also several recommendations concerning content and quality. We were particularly pleased that we had a unanimous decision to remove the genre restrictions from the ABC and SBS. On this side of the House we believe that the ABC and SBS have an extremely important role to play in the development of new content and the development of the new format for digital television itself. Current funding does not really allow them to pursue that role with the strength that I know they wish to. But removing the genre restrictions from their second channel, their digital channel, which will allow them much broader broadcasting of content, goes a small way towards that.

This is an extremely complex report. There are 12 recommendations in all, most of which provide the free-to-air broadcasters with considerable flexibility in the way they approach the changeover. (Time expired)

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