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Public action in the Parliament

26 January 2009 at 1 pm
Ljubljana
 


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Sandra B. Hrvatin
Lenart J. Kučić

Digitalization – between the myth and reality

What are, in the opinion of the European Commission, the main advantages of the transition to digital broadcasting? Digital systems provide higher quality picture and sound, a greater number of radio and television programs, and enable (new) interactive services. Since the shutting down of analog broadcasting will free analog spectrum, it will be possible to redistribute it, ensure optimal coverage with the signal, and allocate the remaining analog frequencies to other services, primarily mobile telephony. Since broadcasters will not have to maintain two different technological platforms, the savings thus gained can be redirected to the production of content and the development of interactive services: education, entertainment, games, sales, tourist services and so on.

The arguments above appear so logical that public debates so far did not include their critical assessment. Yet, none of these major advantages, that is, the quality of picture and sound, a greater number of programs and interactive services, is as compelling as it may appear at first glance, especially not so if we look at these issues from the perspective of the consumers who will have to pay more for these “advantages” than they now pay for analog services.

Higher quality picture and sound

In most examples, digital systems do provide a better quality picture and sound provided that the signal is strong enough. But the question is whether the technical quality is really an important factor for the consumer when deciding on a new service. Slovenian cable operators have been providing “digital television” option for several years now. Their conclusion is that the consumers are more interested in content than the quality of television picture and sound. Since for the time being the range of programs they offer is limited to existing “digitalized” programs with no new content added, in Slovenia the demand for digital television is extremely low. The quality of picture and sound on its own is interesting only for a smaller group of viewers whose proportion can be compared to that of audiophiles among the group of music lovers. In the majority of practical examples, higher quality picture and sound are not important factors. If someone uses the radio just as a musical background, “digital sound quality” is not a factor, and the same holds true when music is played in the car or on the bus. Quality matters to a certain extent, for example, in the case of attentive watching of television at home, but with the new forms of media consumption other factors are more decisive. These are diversity of content and the option of individual choice.

The success and extent of Internet music and movies consumption suggest that consumers are ready to exchange, without much hesitation, technical quality for accessibility, individual choice of content (video streaming, video on demand, mp3 files) and lower price. Although CD and DVD formats offer better quality than mp3 or divx, they’ve been losing battle with Internet music and picture file formats, which may be downloaded to mobile devices, exchanged, modified according to individual preferences and used in ways not anticipated or expected by music and movie publishers.

Even more radical changes are envisaged in the wake of the flourishing of Internet services for the exchange of videos (e.g. YouTube), because user content on which these services draw in no way adheres to the traditional standards of “quality.” These videos frequently have no narrative; they are made using amateur cameras, occasionally a video camera, but even more frequently a web camera; there is no production involved in the traditional sense of the word, and it is possible to speak about genres only in a very broad sense. Every viewer can contribute their videos and modify the products of other members of the community, which is something that the traditional movie and television production never allowed.

These recordings are not limited to television sets and home use, but they exploit platforms that have no real connection with digital broadcasting – mobile computers, hand-held devices, mobile phones and game consoles, where the “quality of picture and sound” does not play an important role because of the small size of screens and limited data transmission speed. The question of whether this is just a transitional stage and the demands for quality will rise along with the throughput of telecommunication networks still waits for an answer, but we believe that new “non-hierarchical and decentralized” forms of content production and distribution will essentially contribute to the changes in the traditional understanding of broadcasting. The production and broadcasting by one (source) to many (users) of the same progamming content at the same time will be replaced with multi-directional interactive communication where the once clearly defined and delimited “roles” of producers and consumers will be much more indefinite, and the dividing line between them blurred. Digitalization is already underway and it in many respects calls into question the “form and content” of digitalization that should be in place in 2012 in accordance with the already adopted European documents.

Greater number of programs

The forecast that the greater number of free channels will bring in more programs/ content, is rather general and based on the Internet experience. However, since the Internet did not have to contend with restricted resources as are radio frequencies, and since its market entry was not technically highly demanding and the costs of it were affordable, content and forms rapidly increased. However, this experience cannot be translated directly to digital broadcasting. The prolific development of web content is primarily a result of the openness (as well as neutrality) of the Internet technology and relatively free access to infrastructure. No matter how many frequencies will be freed or enabled thanks to digitalization, it is not possible to expect that digital infrastructure will ever be open in the “Internet style.” Digital frequencies will end in the hands of large media companies, that is, public and private broadcasters, and the type of broadcast content will depend on their business interests. Since it is not likely that the costs of entry into the digital broadcasting market will ever become low enough to enable smaller production companies or television stations to gain a foothold there (not to mention individuals), broadcasting license holders will not have (serious) competitors personified by bloggers and other content contributors on the Internet. Therefore, the belief that thanks to costs optimization broadcasting license holders will dedicate more resources to the development of content and services is quite naïve.

More interactive services

The most problematic seems to be the forecast that digital broadcasters will become competitive providers of interactive services. The biggest obstacle in digital broadcasting is the limited option of bi-directional communication (from the user to the source), given that the existing communication solutions require an Internet connection. If that connection is not available, the broadcaster can provide additional, pre-designed content, but it is limited and comparable to additional content on movie DVDs, for example, director’s comments, somewhat more user friendly menus, information on the broadcast and tv listings.

At the same time, Internet providers are becoming increasingly important television content providers, and by 2012 Internet services of the new generation will cover 80 to 90 percent of households in the majority of European countries.(1) With such a high penetration of broadband Internet access, by the date set for the transition to digital broadcasting the providers of Internet services (cable operators and telecoms) will long since enable everything that digital television currently only promises: high-resolution television (quality picture and sound), content provided by giants such as Google, Apple, Yahoo (large number of channels), and a number of interactive services already enabled by Internet technologies.

Digital broadcasting will have competitors in the ether as well, since mobile phone operators have been successfully upgrading UMTS networks which already make possible 3 Mbit/sec data transmission speed. This speed suffices for the smooth transmission of music and video content adapted for display on the small size screens of mobile phones. Even greater changes are promised by new wireless networks, given that winmax technology promises the transmission speeds which, according to some optimistic forecasts, would suffice even for the transmission of television picture of high resolution at a distance of several tens of kilometers.

From “analog” to “digital” regulation?

Critical considerations of the advantages of digitalization have to be put into the context of the old/new forms of regulation. The goal of the traditional media regulation was to prevent monopolies on information that could jeopardize plurality and diversity of content. Among the methods used were the restrictions on ownership shares in media companies and setting of programming quotas in the public interest. Digital broadcasting brings a number of new bottlenecks (obstacles) in the communication process which appear at the stage when the programming is completed and content communicated to the user. What we have in mind here are technological obstacles that emerge on the level of infrastructure and transmission, for example, within the conditional access systems, EPG and application interfaces, but also obstacles that are characteristic of the stages of creation and provision of services – service platforms and digital packages (bouquets). While during the analog era restrictions in the media field were under the control of governments, the “bottlenecks” introduced by digital broadcasting are under the control of media (telecommunications) corporations. The goals of the regulation serving the interests of the public should be directed towards exerting control over those who make editorial decisions. In the digital era, these are the providers or designers of digital packages (bouguets). Even if the ownership of digital platforms that distribute programs is regulated, it will not essentially influence the type of content.

Let’s suppose that we have 300 programs not much differing among themselves for which we have to pay individualized access, or we have “one” publicly accessible bouquet that will offer 300 types of content and will be accessible to all under the same conditions. The message is that in addition to ensuring plurality of ownership, it is also necessary to ensure the conditions for public media operation. In the world of digital regulation, it is precisely public media that are the most open and most accessible platform or a bouquet that provides plurality of content. Therefore, restrictions on media concentration and protection of pluralism are inseparable from public media protection.

(1) Arthur D. Little: Next Generation Networks in Europe, Broadband in 2011 and Beyond.
 


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