Broadcasters slam DOC standards review

Frustrated broadcasters MNet and etv have slammed the Department of Communications' (DOC's) decision to review the digital standard, saying a R250 million investment in the current standard would be swept aside.

Speaking at a media event this afternoon, executives from both broadcasters called the DOC's plans “silly”. They added that it completely undermines the eight-year process, and the considerable investment all stakeholders have made to get digital TV to South African citizens.

At the beginning of May, the DOC stunned broadcasters when it revealed it had decided to “review” the standard that SA had decided to adopt for the migration of TV.

SA adopted the DVB standard in 2005, when the South African Standards Bureau approved it as the local digital broadcasting option, and all digital migration trials since 2007 have been conducted on this standard.

Despite the looming deadline for the digital TV switchover, broadcasters are still in the dark about whether the DOC has decided to allow broadcasters to continue using the standard they have already implemented, or if they will need to switch to the Japanese-developed ISDB standard.

Tensions are high around the two standards. Speculation holds that the DOC has already made its decision to move to the essentially untried ISDB; however, communications minister Siphiwe Nyanda has vehemently denied this.

Parliament and the DOC's digital TV policy call on broadcasters to switch off analogue TV by November next year.

The broadcasters are also concerned that no decision or word has yet reached them from the DOC about what it plans to do. This leaves them in effective limbo on whether to proceed with digital TV trials.

The DOC clammed up on its plans after a symposium in May, when the first industry and media backlash against its review started. During a hearing before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications last week, the minister said the DOC has not yet made a decision on the matter.

“I have received a preliminary report on that colloquium, but I am still awaiting a final report, and the final decision on what standard to adopt will be made by Cabinet. I have not yet taken any of this to Cabinet,” he said.

Group executive for regulatory strategy at etv Lara Kantor explained that changing the digital standard at this late stage will not only impact the broadcasters, but government and SA as a whole.

Until the review, Sentech's roll out was expected to cost around R1 billion. It is unclear how much more it will cost taxpayers if the new standard is implemented.

Government committed last year to give R400 million to the subsidisation of decoders for SA's poor households that will need the device to watch digital TV. This year's budget saw an additional R180 million allocated to the subsidies.

However, if the DOC proceeds with its plans, etv and MNet have calculated that government will either need to cut back on the number of subsidies, or find an additional R2.2 billion to subsidise the same number of homes it would have before.

Their calculations come from the cost of a DVB decoder compared with the cost of the ISDB decoder, which etv says is far more expensive.

More of a concern is SA's signature on the International Telecommunications Union agreement, signed in Geneva in 2006, which commits the country to switching off analogue by 2015.

Countries that are part of the Southern African Development Community have also signed a collective agreement that the analogue spectrum will be freed up by 2013. When these dates roll around, the TV signal on the analogue frequencies will no longer be “protected”.

Essentially, the spectrum used for analogue TV will be reallocated to Internet and telecoms services, which could provide interference in the frequencies, meaning South African TV could become degraded when the deadline comes around.

With the many delays and lack of clarity around this issue, Karen Willenberg, director for regulatory and legal affairs at MNet, says there is no way the broadcasters will meet the November 2011 deadline stipulated by the DOC's own DTT policy.

She says there are far too many households to cover, and the decoders have not been manufactured yet. “There is no question that we will not make the 2011 deadline now. We can't switch off the 9.1 million homes that don't have the decoders to watch TV next year,” she explains.

If the DOC decides to change the standard, the deadline will need to be pushed out by at least three years, but more likely five years, and broadcasters are concerned it will be too close to the international deadline set in 2006.

If the department decides tomorrow to continue using the existing standard, the broadcasters will be ready to release a commercial digital TV product in nine months.