When people in China and the US are enjoying good views of the 2008 Olympic Games baseball finals on their thin liquid-crystal display (LCD) TVs, viewers here, however, will likely be moaning over the home run they missed in the blink of the eye, sitting in front of their bulky cathode-ray tube (CRT) TVs.
Such a scenario is embarrassing, given that Taiwan is one of the largest LCD-display manufacturers in the world. What's more embarrassing is that in 2002 the government targeted two main sectors in the digital broadcasting industry -- LCDs and digital content -- as key emerging businesses.
"I think the government has done nothing but chant `digital' for the past two years," said Gary Tsai (蔡俊榮), vice president of China Network Systems Co (中嘉網路), a digital broadcasting provider that began service in November 2002.
Many countries, including the US, China and Japan, have mapped out concrete plans to develop the digital broadcasting sector.
The US, for example, mandated that by mid-2007, all TV receiver sets larger than 13 inches sold in that country must contain digital TV tuners. Motivated by its role as host of the 2008 Olympics, China plans to shut down analogue broadcasts region by region, with the goal of shutting down the system by 2015.
The digital TV fad has also swept Taiwan. Dreaming of the gold mine that is digital TV -- which can deliver value-added services beyond traditional TV -- including pay-per-view movies, video games, home shopping and ordering a pizza delivery, the Cabinet promised to boost the subscription rate of digital broadcasting to 85 percent by 2006. The private sector held one seminar after another on digital TV in hopes for tapping the greater Chinese market.
But such dreams appear to be a mirage now. While there are more than 6 million household cable TV subscribers nationwide, China Network and Eastern Multimedia Co (東森媒體科技) have just 20,000 subscribers apiece in Keelung, Taipei, Taipei County and Taoyuan County. The third digital TV carrier, Taiwan Broadband Corp (台灣寬頻), also has small subscriber base in central Taiwan. All three blame the government for their low subscription rates.
Last August, the Taipei City Government fixed the prices of set-top boxes -- the digital decoders -- at NT$3,500 -- NT$1,500 to NT$2,000 less than the cable companies had proposed. The move blocked operators from entering the city, a key market.
The Government Information Office (GIO) agreed last fall to revise laws on the development of digital TV, but the March election and resulting Cabinet reshuffle meant little has been done.
"I don't know how much we've lost after pumping NT$500 million into the infrastructure ? the red ink is too miserable to look at," said Charles Wu (吳中立), chief executive officer of Eastern Multimedia.
Samuel Wu (吳水木), director of the GIO's Department of Broadcasting Affairs, said that an amendment will be passed next month at the earliest.
But he said the industry has only itself to blame since the current content of digital TV programming is uninspiring.
The low subscription rate has also hampered LCD sales, Wu said.
According to the government-funded researcher Market Intelligence Center, sales of LCD TVs reached 35,000 units last year, while manufacturers shipped out 400,000 LCDs in the same period, and will boost their output to 2 million this year.
Oscar Tsai (蔡宏杰), a Keelung resident, said he is sticking with cable TV because he hasn't seen any evidence of quality digital channels yet, even though it would only cost him about NT$600 a year to get the service on top of his cable subscription fee.
For example, five of China Network's Interactive TV six digital channels feature adult programs such as Playboy TV and Rainbow Channel; the sixth offers children's programs.
"Content is the king, but it will take a new fee system to push the industry to produce good content," said Hamilton Cheng (程宗明), a researcher at the Public Television Service (公視).
Cheng said cable providers here bundle all the channels together for a set price while providers in other countries offer different packages of channels. Now that the time has come to shift these channels to a digital platform, providers are having a hard time deciding which channels should be in the additional subscription section, Cheng said.
"If we don't act fast, digital-home entertainment will be something people in other countries have, not people here," Cheng said.
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