THE Federal Government has shelved the launch of several new TV channels amid concerns policy and technical flaws would make them unviable.

More than a dozen new digital channels were expected to start this year under changes by the former Howard government aimed at introducing greater competition to the $12 billion sector in the wake of media ownership reforms, The Australian Financial Review reports.

The services were to include at least 15 mobile TV channels for hand-held devices such as mobile phones and a similar number for in-home digital set-top boxes, increasing competition for existing networks.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said the government could not auction the spectrum set aside for the channels until it undertook a detailed technical and policy review.

"If I went (to auction) under the conditions that currently exist I think there would be marginal business interest," he said.

"So we've taken a step back and we're having a good hard look at where to take this.

"We'll reach a decision on whether to proceed or not during the second half of the year, there's no suggestion of an auction in the near future."

Senator Conroy blamed a deal struck two years ago by his predecessor Helen Coonan to appease Nationals MPs for the delay, but Senator Coonan accused him of caving to pressure from commercial networks.

Senator Conroy also flagged overhauling concessions given to pay TV giant Foxtel when it entered the market more than 10 years ago, because some could no longer be justified given the company was profitable.

source

*sigh*

I assume that this 'only' involves TV to watch on your mobile phone etc, and doesn't affect next years multichanneling on existing spectrum by 9, 7, ABC Kids etc etc???

Personally I don't subscribe to any phone TV services myself as I don't see the point (even though I work for Hutchison / 3 ) but definitely looking forward to any new FTA channels.

Damn. I was looking forward to watching The Bold and The Beautiful on my mobile

I assume that this 'only' involves TV to watch on your mobile phone etc, and doesn't affect next years multichanneling on existing spectrum by 9, 7, ABC Kids etc etc???

The services were to include at least 15 mobile TV channels for hand-held devices such as mobile phones and a similar number for in-home digital set-top boxes

From that statement, it appears it will affect multichannelling.

Senator Conroy also flagged overhauling concessions given to pay TV giant Foxtel when it entered the market more than 10 years ago, because some could no longer be justified given the company was profitable.

concessions = shelving FTA multi-channeling so Foxtel can profit

The in-home services would have either been ultra-niche channels (like the "boating channel" for anglers Senator Coonan sugggested) or a datacast service - ie, little more than a bit of looped video set within a powerpoint slide promoting a Christian organisation or commercial enterprise. Well worth hanging out for, I don't think.

All,

This does not affect multichannelling. Multichannelling is where more than one program is radiated from a single TV channel for example in mainland metropolitan areas the ABC uses channel 12. It uses a digital encoder and a transmitter to send Logical Channel Numbers 2 (ABC1) , 21 (ABC1) , 22 (ABC2) , 23 (ABC3) , and a sort of HD channel number 20 (ABC1). In addition they transmit a pair of sound programs (dig & Jazz). When you compare this to their analog channel 2 they can only transmit one program on it "ABC1". Both channel 2 and 12 are the same size. (Bandwidth)

AlanH

What is does do is prevent other operators from entering the market and grabbing the existing FTAs by the scruff of their necks and shaking them around a bit which might actually result in them lifting their games.

*sigh*

Well it appears Conroy isn't content with destroying the broadband industry and wants to do the same to TV, thanks mate.

What is does do is prevent other operators from entering the market and grabbing the existing FTAs by the scruff of their necks and shaking them around a bit which might actually result in them lifting their games.

But what they want to avoid is flogging the bandwidth for almost nothing and ending up with crap that doesnt shake up the FTAs.

I do think that they are right in that they are ready for this.

I see the issue not so much as how long to delay this, but what the heck will they do to make sure its ready to happen later and not just end up postponing it again.

I think everyone should take a deep breath and wait for more details to be released.In today's Australian Financial Review article about the Government's new Digital Tv policy the main areas talked about were the so called Licences A and B and how these were being re-evaluated.

My reading of it was that the proposed new SD channels would proceed as previously announced. There was also mention of the Government removing concessions from Foxtel ( eg no minimum Australian drama content) now that they had become profitable.Senator Conroy also mentioned that the Government would certainly be maintaining the Anti-Siphoning List to prevent Pay-Tv from monopolising sport.Nothing overly sensational in my view and certainly no reason for Conroy to die a slow agonising death!

Edited May 21, 200817 yr by holdencaulfield2007

Its about time they released some information about these services.

I think this could be good news. The system that Helen Coonan had in mind would have meant the new channels (not including the new multichannels from existing broadcasters which are uneffected by this) would have been a bunch of uninteresting channels of narrow appeal (hence the term narrow casting).

Perhaps now we will see some decent new channels, or maybe not. Point is there is some chance now for better TV content - that wouldnt have been the case had Conroy just gone ahead with Coonans plan.

Edited May 21, 200817 yr by yabbal

I'd just be happy to get the 3 commercial FTA channels.

3 FTA digital's would be cream on top.

I think this is a sensible decision and that some people are judging Conroy too soon. Coonan's plan was rather stupid and in fact pandered to Foxtel by providing most likely very niche, uninteresting content that would not have bothered the commercials one bit. I'm glad he's going to review the whole idea but I hope the process speeds up a bit, since we already waited around 6 months just to hear their position on this.

The original goal of the A & B channel was for narrowcast services - one channel targeting mobile phones, the other targeting narrowcast home channels. Although the regulations were going to restrict the content - the bandwidth was so small that it was obvious it couldn't compete with the FTAs anyway. But times change.

But... what was the bandwidth? Was it 18Mbps? If so 15 channels would provide 1.2Mbps per channel, and that is just above the standard quality people watch with pirated divx downloads (divx version of MPEG4-2). If you upgrade to AVC (MPEG4-10) the quality increases, and could easily be close to SDTV quality. Modern compressors will dynamically allocate bandwidth to whichever channel needs more/less so the quality could jump up again.

These 15 channels could be high quality - phones need simpler signals of course, but the home channels with an appropriate set top box could easily be good SDTV quality. It's worth deciding how they want to handle these - I just hope they decide quickly so that Freeview can support them in some way (... if Freeview would WANT to support them...?).

Edited May 23, 200817 yr by GregA

The original goal of the A & B channel was for narrowcast services - one channel targeting mobile phones, the other targeting narrowcast home channels. Although the regulations were going to restrict the content - the bandwidth was so small that it was obvious it couldn't compete with the FTAs anyway. But times change.

But... what was the bandwidth? Was it 18Mbps? If so 15 channels would provide 1.2Mbps per channel, and that is just above the standard quality people watch with pirated divx downloads (divx version of MPEG4-2). If you upgrade to AVC (MPEG4-10) the quality increases, and could easily be close to SDTV quality. Modern compressors will dynamically allocate bandwidth to whichever channel needs more/less so the quality could jump up again.

These 15 channels could be high quality - phones need simpler signals of course, but the home channels with an appropriate set top box could easily be good SDTV quality. It's worth deciding how they want to handle these - I just hope they decide quickly so that Freeview can support them in some way (... if Freeview would WANT to support them...?).

For Mobile Phones, they would just need to use 240x320 (1/4 of SD resolution), so if we can have 3 SD Channels sharing 23Mbps, we can have 12 Mobile Phone Channels sharing 23Mbps, so nearly 2Mbps per channel (audio and video), it should theoretically look as good as SD, but with 1/4 the resolution.

For Mobile Phones, they would just need to use 240x320 (1/4 of SD resolution), so if we can have 3 SD Channels sharing 23Mbps, we can have 12 Mobile Phone Channels sharing 23Mbps, so nearly 2Mbps per channel (audio and video), it should theoretically look as good as SD, but with 1/4 the resolution.

(Is it 23 Mbps? That's more than I would have thought)

You're making too many assumptions, I think. For example, at 5Mbps per channel you can fit 4-5 channels into 23Mbps. Also 1/4 the size doesn't use 1/4 the space - SDTV (about 5Mbps) is 720x576 while HD (about 13Mbps) is 1440x1080, whereas the number of pixels is 3.75 times as many.

Beyond all that - the mobile TV standards like 3GP use MPEG4-10 ("Advanced Video Codec") which compresses much better than the old MPEG2 we use for DVD & SDTV & HDTV. So many more fit in.

But - they ARE talking about that many mobile channels. I'm surprised they're not pushing for many more channels (for mobile) or higher standard-def quality (for TVs). Hopefully this "rethink" will come up with something good. Don't hold your breath though

Edited May 23, 200817 yr by GregA

They should start to air more FTA chanels for the set top boxes cause america gets like 100 FTA Channels for the set top box

(Is it 23 Mbps? That's more than I would have thought)

well 7MHz bandwidth has the ability to have 23Mbps, that's what ABC, 7, 9 and TEN get.

They should start to air more FTA chanels for the set top boxes cause america gets like 100 FTA Channels for the set top box

Yeah, that's how FreeView in the UK got up and running... From BBC one, BBC Two, ITV1, 4 (and in some regions, Five) on Analogue, to all these plus BBC three and Four, CBBC, CBeebies, BBC News (24), ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, E4, More4, Film4, Fiver, Five US, not to mention about 10 music channels (so much choice ). Granted, they've now got 'issues' because they don't have the bandwidth for HD services (but hey they even got that figured out- divvy up the remaining bandwidth to the providers!) Do that in Australia, and we'd have 100% digital in 6 months

Edited May 25, 200817 yr by jchowland

Unfortunately Australia's 'freeview' is structured considerably differently to the UKs. We still have the same basic 3 commercial networks (4 including SBS). Don't expect a lot of change from the current situation of magical mystery tour scheduling and programming being butchered or simply vanishing into the void.

Don't expect a lot of change from the current situation of magical mystery tour scheduling and programming being butchered or simply vanishing into the void.

Second that, I'd even now rank Australian TV networks below Fox News and other US networks.... Absolutely no interest in providing content. I'm just hoping that (for some reason) that being given a couple of other channels they'll stick they're less successful shows on those instead of killing it mid-series.

Conroy's on 406 last night describing the extra time needed for A&B to be reworked into something else. Probably on this morning if you're so inclined. Seems like ACMA have been sidelined from the discussion I was listening to.