Switching to Digital Television

Michael Starks

Description

Between 2008 and 2012 the UK plans to turn off its conventional analogue terrestrial television and switch fully to digital TV. This is part of a trend across all the technologically advanced nations of the world. The city of Berlin led the way in 2003. The Netherlands became the first country to switch fully in 2006. Digital television was launched in the UK in 1998. Its growth has been dramatic and by no means smooth. The decision to switch fully is, at its heart, a political one: governments and regulators manage terrestrial spectrum and are ultimately responsible for switchover policy. Switching off the conventional analogue television signals to which consumers (and voters) have been accustomed for most of their lives poses a tricky political challenge. It cannot be accomplished by government diktat. Switching to Digital Television shows how, for success, public policy needs to work in conjunction with both competitive market forces and with organised broadcasting industry collaboration. Switching to Digital Television is an authoritative study of the policy of digital switchover. It is based primarily on UK experience but includes comparative studies spanning the United States, Japan and the leading countries of western Europe.

Sujets

• Digital Media
• Literary Criticism
• Industries
• Large-screen television technology
• General officer
• Television
• General
• Internet
• Industrie

Informations

• Publié par: Intellect Books Ltd
• Date de parution: 01 septembre 2006
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781841509884
• Langue: English

Extrait

Switching to Digital Television
UK Public Policy and the Market
Michael Starks
First Published in the UK in 2007 by Intellect Books, PO Box 862, Bristol BS99 1DE, UK
First Published in the USA in 2007 by Intellect Books, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
Copyright 2007 Michael Starks
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Cover Design: Gabriel Solomons Copy Editor: Holly Spradling Typesetting: Planman Technologies
ISBN 978-1-84150-172-7/EISBN 978-1-84150-988-4
Printed and bound by HSW Print, UK.
About the Author
Michael Starks is an Associate of Oxford University s Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy.
From 2002 to 2004 he managed the UK Digital TV Project, working for the UK Government, planning the UK s full switch to digital television. Earlier, in the course of a long BBC career starting in TV production, he led the BBC s initial feasibility study of digital television. He was the founder Chairman of the UK Digital TV Group of broadcasters, receiver manufacturers, retailers, transmission companies and R D experts. In 2001 he initiated the BBC s Free-to-View Digital TV Project which culminated in the launch of Freeview in 2002.
Michael Starks graduated in History from Cambridge University and studied Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania as a postgraduate. His book on public sector management, Not for Profit, Not for Sale , was published in 1991, followed in 2002 by A Traveller s History of the Hundred Years War in France .
Contents

Acknowledgements
Preface
Chapter One Public Policy and the Market
Chapter Two Who Wants Digital Terrestrial Television?
Chapter Three Digital = Pay TV?
Chapter Four Shipwreck and Rescue
Chapter Five Charting a New Course
Chapter Six Politics and Responsibilities
Chapter Seven Consumers are Voters
Chapter Eight International Perspective
Chapter Nine The Bigger Picture
Chapter Ten Mapping Digital Switchover
Notes
Select Bibliography
List of Abbreviations
Index
Acknowledgements
I have two major groups of colleagues (many of whom became close friends) whose contribution to this book I must acknowledge - those with whom I worked during my years of professional involvement and those who assisted me in my subsequent research.
The professional colleagues are so numerous that to list them all would be impractical. I hope I have given a flavour of their roles in the course of the book. However, the ones who were, in a very real sense, my teachers in the early digital television feasibility study phase included John Birt (now Lord Birt), Bob Phillis, Patricia Hodgson (now Dame), Bob Ely, Martin Bell, Ian Childs, David King, Phil Laven, Henry Price, Gary Tonge, Chris Hibbert, Chris Daubney and Barry Cox. In relation to my subsequent work on free-to-view digital TV several of the same names recur and I must additionally thank Greg Dyke, Carolyn Fairbairn, Andy Duncan, Caroline Thomson, Peter Davies, Andy Townend, Mark Evans, Graham Plumb and David Levy.
Finally, in respect of my switchover work for the Government, I should credit Andrew Ramsay, Catherine Smadja, David Hendon, Jane Humphreys, Ian Dixon, Michael Crosse, Michael Hodson, Greg Bensberg, Danny Churchill, David Harby, Emyr Hughes, Mike Hughes, David Youlton, Marcus Coleman, Peter Marshall, Jane Ostler, Jos Cleare and the leading members of the TV manufacturers association, including Hugh Peltor and Laurence Harrison. I apologize for not naming the many others with whom I also worked closely.
I am most grateful to the British Academy for the support it gave me to undertake research in 2005 and 2006, including travel to the United States and Japan and within Europe.
In the United States I was greatly helped by Phil Budden and Jennifer Taylor at the British Embassy and by Jonathan Levy, Evan Kwerel and Sherille Ismael at the Federal Communications Commission. I was grateful for the interviews given to me by Susan Eid (DirecTV), Johanna Shelton (House of Representatives staff), James Assey and Rachel Welch (Senate staff), Lynn Claudy (National Association of Broadcasters), John Lawson (Association of Public Television Stations), Gary Shapiro (Consumer Electronics Association), Bob Schwartz (who briefed me on the role of the Consumer Electronics Retailers Coalition), Matt Polka (American Cable Association), Mark Richer (Advanced Television Systems Committee), Kyle McSlarrow (National Cable and Telecommunications Association), and Janice Obuchowski and John Alden (High Tech DTV Coalition).
In Japan I had invaluable help and advice from Yoshiko Nakamura of NHK s Broadcasting Culture Research Institute and her colleagues. I much appreciated the opportunity to interview Tomohiro Ando, Director of Information Technology at the Cabinet Office of the Japanese government; Madoka Tsuchiya and Maki Shigemori of NHK; Norio Kumabe, visiting professor at Waseba University; Hideki Maekawa of the TBS Media Research Institute; Sadahiro Iehara, Norimasa Okamura, Susumu Masukane, Katsumi Matsumoto and Osamu Inoue of the Japan Electronics Information Technology Industries Association; and Tetsuo Hamaguchi of the Association for the Promotion of Digital Broadcasting. I was also very grateful for a background briefing by Andrew Dumbreck of Ofcom.
In researching digital television in other European countries, I drew on visits I had made professionally to Germany and Italy. I also consulted Phil Laven and Ed Wilson of the European Broadcasting Union. Peter Scott at the European Commission was very generous in giving me a wide-ranging background briefing. I attended the 2006 conference of the DICE project (digital innovation through cooperation in Europe) in Sweden, learned much about the Swedish experience of switching off analogue television from the team responsible for leading it and, subsequently, consulted Ingrid Walther about Germany s timetable. I also visited Finland in 2006 and was greatly helped by Antti Sillanp of the Helsinki University of Technology; Tauno ij l of the TV2007 project and his colleagues; Katariina Kovist of the Ministry of Transport and Communications; and Mika Ojamies, Mauri Vakkilainen and Erja Ruohomaa of YLE (Finnish national broadcasting).
At Oxford I greatly enjoyed collaborating with Damian Tambini, then Director of Oxford University s Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy, and Mar a Trinidad Garc a Leiva, a visiting Ph.D. researcher from the Complutense University of Madrid, analysing different nations experience of digital television and jointly publishing a journal article. Separately, Mar a Trinidad Garc a Leiva gave me a detailed briefing on digital television in Spain.
Within the UK I interviewed Martin Bell, my former BBC colleague in this field who is also now writing about it. On mobile television developments, I appreciated David Harby s advice and comments on my text.
Any mistakes are, of course, my responsibility.
Finally, I would like to thank May Yao and her colleagues at Intellect Books for all the work involved on the publishing side.
Preface
Digital switchover is the term used to convey to the public the compulsory abolition of the conventional analogue television system, to which every household became accustomed in the twentieth century, and its replacement by digital television. It sounds a more positive term than the harsher alternative analogue switch-off . As the policy bites, with implications for all consumers, this account explains why we are all being compelled to switch. It is a story with a cast of politicians and media barons and a good plot with plenty of twists - and is matched by similar experiences in other countries.
The decision-making around switching off the old-style analogue television and converting all television viewing to digital in the UK - and in other nations too - provides an illuminating case study of the interplay between politics and the market. Through a combination of exhortation and regulatory intervention politicians aimed to secure what they wanted from business leaders, and, through a combination of lobbying and commercial action, business leaders endeavoured to achieve their own institutional goals. Both parties knew that at any point the viewing public, as consumers or as voters, could rebel and that consumer persuasion was critical to success.
This is not a technical book, nor am I technically qualified to write one. It is a political and business saga, with analysis and some lessons for the future. I have included some lay explanation of the technology in order to convey a general understanding of the subject, especially where technology was relevant to political or commercial decisions. I hope that this enables the non-technical reader to follow the industrial politics and avoids offending those readers who do have technical expertise.
The political process should be of interest to policy-makers, broadcasters, industry managers and business commentators in the UK and in other countries, while students of politics, regulatory law and media can see how the main themes and conclusions relate to the wider field of telecommunications. For political scientists the story provides a close-up of the complexities and the sophistication of the politico-commercial relationships underpinning change in technologically advanced societies. What we see goes beyond regulated capitalism, falls well short of a planned economy, and has a distinctive character of its own. Here is a slice of the real politics of a modern mixed economy.
For the wider public, viewers and voters, the process is illuminating too. This account shows the points at which the public had opportunities to shape decisi