President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has proclaimed that next year will see a complete switchover to high--definition (HD) digital TV in Taiwan. The National Communications Commission (NCC) has started working on the terrestrial digital TV switchover and will be closing all terrestrial analog TV signals on July 1 next year. Once done, that will allow the public to view 16 digital TV stations through terrestrial digital TV set-top boxes.
The NCC has said each terrestrial channel will at most provide three hours of HD programming per week. This is an insubstantial and irresponsible TV digitization policy.
The UK will also be closing down all analog signals next year, but British viewers have long had access to quality terrestrial digital TV services. At the moment, all viewers have to do is install a set-top box costing the equivalent of NT$900 or alternatively use TV sets with built-in digital receivers to view more than 50 channels for free, including 26 entertainment channels, five HD channels, three children’s channels, two music channels, two interactive channels, five news channels (including the BBC Parliament channel and al-Jazeera news channel), 13 lifestyle channels, as well as 25 radio stations.
There is a social consensus in Britain that each person should have the right to be able to view quality terrestrial digital TV services.
Since people in the UK have been able to watch free, quality terrestrial digital TV for years now, it is little wonder they have not felt the need to spend extra money on cable TV subscriptions. As such, the cable TV penetration rate in the UK is a low 23 percent.
Taiwan, by contrast, has 5.8 million cable TV subscribers, or 63 percent of the nation’s total 8.4 million TV viewers. This is likely an underestimate, as it is commonly estimated that this figure is above 80 percent.
Cable TV companies are making plenty of money, but poor quality stations abound and viewers cannot do anything about it.
Instead of reflecting on how to improve inappropriate TV digitization policies, the government has rushed to announce that 50 percent of cable stations must be digitized by 2015 and 75 percent by 2017.
The government is both overtly and covertly allowing one cable TV system operator after another to fall into the hands of big corporations.
Big business is trying to exchange digitization for market share and market concentration and therefore backs up the government’s calls for “digital convergence.”
Given the government’s irresponsible policy, cable TV could become part of the empires of Daniel Tsai (蔡明忠) of the Fubon Group and Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明) of the Want Want Group. Both groups own and act as agents for a large number of channels, giving them a monopoly over the domestic television market.
Viewers have to pay to watch TV and there is no chance of fair competition for independent TV stations. Given this virtual monopoly, there is little chance of improving the quality of TV programming.
What’s worse, these two groups could leverage their monopoly of the TV market to gain economic and political advantages, causing Taiwan’s democracy to deteriorate.
In the end, all the business and government talk about digital convergence will only amount to a huge transfer of interests, while the interests of the average viewer and television station, lacking the support of cable TV corporations, could be sacrificed any time.
Taiwan’s TV digitization policies desperately need to be re-evaluated. The government should amend the Cable Television Act (有線電視法) and strictly prohibit cable TV system operators from also acting as content providers by owning or acting as an agent for TV channels or at least limit the number of stations they can own or act as an agent for, eg, less than 10.
Cable TV system operators should also be prohibited from owning or acting as an agent for news, finance and mixed--program channels. TV digitization should not mean placing all the eggs in one basket, but it should aim to foster the production and broadcasting of quality free-to-air terrestrial TV content.
The restrictions that limit government, political and military bodies from taking part in Chung-hwa Telecom’s MOD platform should be relaxed. For example, such bodies would be allowed to own less than 10 channels, with the same restrictions on owning news, finance and mixed-programming channels.
The Satellite Broadcasting Act (衛星廣播電視法) should also be amended. It should be stated clearly when licenses are issued that TV stations must treat different TV platforms — including terrestrial, cable and MOD digital TV platforms — equally and that these stations cannot refuse if one platform requests permission to air a program that has already been aired on another platform.
Lastly, the digitization of TV does not automatically equate to quality programming and the government should amend the law so that 6 percent of the revenue from the three major platforms can be used to establish a fund for the production of audiovisual content that will foster better-quality TV content. This is building the foundation for growth.
This, and only this, would be a responsible TV digitization policy.
I would like to urge the government that, as the first year of digital TV is upon us, it should not just shout empty slogans. It needs to come up with the appropriate responses to ensure that the viewing public has access to the audiovisual services it deserves.
Lo Shih-hung is an associate professor of communications and chairman at National Chung Cheng University’s Department of Communications.
Translated by Drew Cameron
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