Fed: Digital compromise "not consumer friendly" : media expert

AAP General News (Australia)
12-21-1999
Fed: Digital compromise "not consumer friendly" : media expert

SYDNEY, Dec 21 AAP - The federal government had failed consumers by trying to strike
a compromise on digital television that would satisfy the interested parties, a media
expert said today.

"The big problem ... I think is the commitment to say no new television services,"

Communications Law Centre director Jock Given told ABC radio.

"So much has been built around that basic sort of political deal that was struck ...

but I'm not sure that the outcome we've got is actually any more consumer friendly."

Communications Minister Richard Alston today announced TV stations would be obliged
to offer both high definition digital and standard definition digital programming.

Senator Alston said the government had ensured the new services would be in the interest
of consumers.

He also announced restrictions on datacasting services, preventing them from providing
traditional TV programs such as news, sports news, financial market and business information
and weather.

Mr Given said the compromises had shortchanged consumers.

"I'm worried (that) the compromises that have been struck are really going to leave
the consumer unsure about what exactly they're getting with the money they spend," he
said.

Ultimately, consumers could pay a lot more for a TV which offered only slightly improved
quality free-to-air TV and slightly faster access to services already available on the
Internet, he said.

"I'm just not sure that's going to be enough to get them to fork out the money," he said.

"The carve up is really about saying that the government didn't want the broadcasters
to be able to introduce multi-channel television ... because it was felt that would be
too tough a competition for pay TV.

"On the other hand they didn't want the datacasters to be able to do conventional television."

He said it was a political deal struck on the basis of ensuring the interested parties
were kept equally happy.

The upshot for consumers was that broadcasters were being prevented from offering what
they wanted to and datacasters were also tightly constrained, he said.

AAP maur/tsm/jjs/rsm

KEYWORD: DIGITAL GIVEN

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