Paul Norris: Digital's the way to go for TVNZ

COMMENT

Forget the VCR, which many people have trouble in setting, and all those old tapes containing no more than four hours of recording. Imagine being able to record and store 60 hours of your favourite television programmes.

Even better, imagine being able to replay those programmes on several TVs in different rooms of the house at the same time: sport in one room, documentary in another, Shortland St for the teenager, and cartoons (oops, educational programmes) for the younger children.

This is what the latest multiroom DVR or digital video recorder can do. The DVR is fast becoming the hot spot in the digital revolution, the nerve centre of the interconnected digital home, able to record information and entertainment and distribute it to your TV, PC, mobile phone or hand-held media centre.

Some experts suggest the use of DVRs is poised to lift off in the way the internet did several years ago.

But if you live in New Zealand you are unlikely to see any of this for some time. There are few DVRs on the market here - a handful have been acquired by determined early adopters.

Effectively, the only digital television here is the Sky service, but unlike Sky subscribers in Britain, Sky viewers here do not have the option of a Sky set-top box combined with a hard-drive recorder.

In Britain, the Sky+ box, as it is known, is proving highly successful. Viewers report a greater sense of control over what and when they watch. They also have access to increasingly sophisticated interactive programming, layers of further choice at the touch of the remote.

In effect, New Zealanders are missing out on many of the benefits of the digital revolution because we are lagging well behind developments in the rest of the world. There are no incentives for viewers to make the switch to digital because there is little hardware available and virtually no digital free-to-air programme content. It is as if we are still playing our vinyl 78s while the rest of the world is enjoying CDs and downloading MP3s.

What is needed is an initiative from our public broadcaster, Television New Zealand. It promises, in its interim report for this year, to take a leading role in the transition to digital.

To turn this rhetoric into action, it should be starting a digital service on satellite - all the free-to-air channels together with some new services.

This would be a free-to-air service: all the viewer would need is a satellite dish and a set-top box, available from some electronic stores or satellite installers. Again, some early adopters (estimated at 10,000) have been buying these and accessing TV One and TV2, which TVNZ is transmitting not only on Sky but on its own leased satellite transponder.

But this has received little publicity or promotion. TVNZ should start a new service offering enough material to persuade viewers to switch to digital, and to establish a digital platform independent of Sky or pay TV.

In Britain the greatest driver to digital has been the remarkable growth of the Freeview service - some 30 channels, including all the main free-to-air channels and various new BBC services.

Which brings us to the strange case of the TVNZ third channel. It appears this new channel, if it goes ahead, will be a mix of some parliamentary coverage, plus repeats of other New Zealand programmes, especially minority programmes, to be screened at more hospitable times. This would be excellent as one of a suite of new digital channels.

However, TVNZ says its plan is to put this channel on UHF, on the frequencies previously used for Horizon Pacific. This might sound like a good idea, but some of the transmitters are old and could need replacing. To invest in more of the old analogue technology at this time would seem perverse indeed. Surely the bolder strategy would be to forget analogue and go straight to digital satellite.

There are other ideas for new channels that could be added into this digital free-to-air mix. The regional TV stations would like to see a "best of the regionals". There could be a channel of various educational programming. Subject to rights negotiations, Australia's ABC or SBS channels could be rebroadcast in whole or in part.

TVNZ could mount a digital satellite free-to-air service in a matter of months. It has the transponder capacity, for which it is paying millions of dollars a year - a hangover of the earlier attempt at a joint digital venture with Telstra Saturn. It has the expertise to build channels and to develop interactive services. Retailers and set-top box makers are itching to get out of the blocks.

So why is all this not happening? Why is our digital development so slow? Part of the answer lies in a ritual dance between the Government and the broadcasting industry, with neither willing to act, each apparently waiting for the other to move.

There are undoubtedly some thorny issues to be resolved for the longer-term future. One of the most difficult is whether New Zealand should have a digital terrestrial network (DTT), meaning that viewers could receive digital television using an aerial or antennae, as many do now.

We know that to build such a digital network, with the hundreds of new digital transmitters required, would be expensive, especially if it attempted to go beyond the main urban areas.

This is one of the reasons digital satellite is such an attractive option - it can be received anywhere provided the viewer has a dish and a set-top box.

It would be a bold and far-sighted decision - which would have to be agreed by both industry and Government - to say DTT was not a viable option for New Zealand and that we would commit to digital satellite as the main delivery platform.

Ultimately the most effective weapon the Government has is the power to determine the switch-off date, the date when all analogue TV signals will be switched off and when the only TV will be digital.

In Britain, the plan is to begin the switch-off in 2007, in the United States some time between 2006 and 2010. Here we are some way from even being able to envisage a target date.

The international experience makes two points very clear. The first is that the move to digital requires both carrots and sticks, incentives and deadlines. The second is that the greatest progress is being made where governments have been proactive and prepared to take a leadership role.

If consumers are to reap the benefits of the digital revolution, we need to see more action from both TVNZ and the Government.

* Paul Norris is head of the broadcasting school at Christchurch Polytechnic.