Inquiry's Sky box view cheers TVNZ

By RICHARD BRADDELL

Television New Zealand is celebrating a small victory after the telecommunications inquiry recommended that digital TV-top boxes to be used by Sky Television should be regulated.

The inquiry recommended that Sky's conditional access - in effect the boxes that allow only Sky subscribers to view its programmes - be put under a level of regulation, requiring the industry to work towards a common standard.

In effect, the same boxes could be used, on commercial terms negotiated with Sky, to enable competing content providers and free-to-air television to offer their interactive services using the same boxes.

The boxes would be programmed to allow access to services for which subscribers had paid.

"We think the inquiry has done an excellent job," TVNZ spokesman Liam Jeory said.

"Our argument, which appears to have been accepted, was that in the converging world bringing together telecommunications, broadcasting and other media, there exist bottlenecks to gateways, that are real and potential."

Sky executives could not be contacted for comment yesterday, although the company has previously opposed regulation.

But Telstra Saturn's chief executive, Jack Matthews, said he was caught by surprise by the recommendation.

He had formed no view as to whether it would be in his company's interests.

Telstra Saturn has a reselling arrangement with Sky which it will use to bundle content in areas not covered by its Wellington cable network.

An open standard might enable Telstra Saturn's half-parent, Austar, to beam in content to Sky dishes if it had a transponder pointed at New Zealand.

But it might also open up Saturn's own cable modem decoders to competing content providers.

Content companies would favour open standards, and distribution companies would not, Mr Matthews said.