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Austar boss criticises digital switch

Austar CEO John Porter says Pay TV is all but excluded from the switch to digital.

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Austar CEO John Porter has said that pay TV had been all but excluded from the planning and marketing of the switch to digital technology after pressure on the government from the free-to-air networks.

“How can you have a digital migration strategy without including pay TV?” he asked at a luncheon in Sydney. “We have millions and millions of capital invested in regional Australia. We have a lot to offer … if we were only invited to the table.”

Free-to-air executives reacted with surprise, saying pay TV did have representation on the government’s Switchover Taskforce.

Austar is in talks with the Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, apparently wanting digital switch-off marketing to clarify that consumers could access digital services through pay-TV.

Mr Porter also lashed out at the free-to-air networks’ attempts to have rules governing the broadcasting of major sporting events extended to their new digital channels. He said such a move would be “outrageous” as it would benefit the networks at the expense of pay TV and the sporting codes. Pay TV has long lobbied against the anti-siphoning list.

“The lack of any real investment in the marketing and promotion of digital television by the commercial free-to-air networks to date is in stark contrast” to pay-TV’s approach, he said.

The analogue switch-off will start in Mildura in 2010 before moving to the cities.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald

10 Responses

  1. I think it is absolutely terrible that we pay to watch t.v. and that half the time we pay for is taken up with adds.

    The only reason we started to get pay tv was no adds . Now all we get is adds.

    if we wanted adds we would just have ordinary tv.

  2. Mate! It is all a load of crap. Have you ever tried to watch Imparja? I have lived in Central Australia for 6 years now and do not even have my free to air aerial plugged into my TV. At the end of the day if the likes of Imparja are going to provide substandard service, then why shouldn’t Adelaide or even Darwin channels be broadcast in other places via Austar? This comes on the back of Imparja’s announcement that they are to drop there local news services and recently they began a focus on NRL at the expense of AFL because “the majority of their viewers reside in QLD”. It is worthy to note that that Imparja’s total viewer numbers are estimated at 400,000. They recently entered a bid to take over channel 9 in Darwin but also expected the government to pay for it!

    All that being said, whilst mystar is a load of crap and I couldn’t count the amount of times I have had to ring up for resets and software upgrades, it is the best service available to me at this time. Apparently when Imparja goes digital (sometime in the next ten years) It will be available on Austar. And then I still wouldn’t watch it!

  3. Cameron, As far as I know it is not legal to broadcast or re-transmit commercial TV signals outside of their licence areas. So Adelaide channels 7, 9 and 10 would not be allowed to be re-broadcast in the regional areas, likewise GTS/BKN, SC10, WIN, WIN10, Imparja, 7 Central would not be allowed to be beamed into Adelaide.

    I am not familiar with Austar’s operations but they would have to be able to split their signals to match the broadcast coverage areas to enable re-broadcast of FTA channels.

  4. Vision for expansion…

    100-9 Imparja (clean feed)
    107-Southern Cross Seven (clean feed)
    110-Star Television (Austar exclusive Ten affiliate jointly run by Austar and Southern Cross Broadcasting)

    The reason clean feeds are needed, is so advertising can be sold on a state by state basis by Austar. Same with news bulletins, with the capital cities news, and in the case of Star Television, bulletins can be produced for it. In return, Austar would be granted the third satellite digital-only licence for Remote and Central Australia.

  5. Austar should first offer the extra channels including 111 Hits. They should perhaps get into agreements with the free to air networks into broadcasting their services in a similar way to ABC where it is state based. It shouldn’t matter too much if regional networks are broadcast on Austar in out of their licence areas. I do believe that is legal though. If that were ok, then lets say Imparja joined Austar and that would mean that viewers who would normally get WIN or NBN could see what another 9 affiliate is like.

    It could always be that all free to air networks are broadcast throughout each state so for for example S.A viewers should get Win S.A, Win Ten, SC GTS/BKN, SC10, Imparja, SC Central, and 7,9 & 10 from Adelaide. I guess it would be more expensive to split each broadcasting region up and by doing it by state may be easier and cheaper. ABC S.A is on Austar ch 196. if Austar took up retransmissions of regional stations, it may be best to offer all networks across each state regardless if it is broadcast in a certain area or not. SC Central and Imparja would be best to follow the ABC and SBS transmissions and be available to all customers through Austar.

  6. the thing that annoys me the most with the MySuck, sorry, MyStar, is the EPG on the local FTAs is non-existent (it actually did used to work, but for some reason Prime Newcastle had Ten Perth’s EPG… strange but true).

    Nowadays all we get on the local FTA EPGs is the following: “no program information is available” and it is in 3-hour blocks. If you try to record a program, it mostly stuffs up.

    Not good enough Austar – time to get off your fat American arses, give us HD and all the channels Foxtel viewers get – 111 Hits, Knowledge and CBeebies should be on the system now.

    Austar promised its suckers, sorry customers, that we would be able to watch what “your city cousins had access to” when Digital came along…. what a load of hogswallop. No BBC HD, no FOX Sports HD, no ESPN HD, no Nat Geo HD, no Discovery HD, no 111 Hits, no BBC Knowledge, no CBeebies.

    It’s simply not good enough.

    Porter – nick off back to Yanksville and stay there!

  7. I really think it’s critical that Foxtel and Austar get all the FTA channels onto their platforms ASAP. Then they need to start advertising themselves as “the best way to upgrade to digital”.

    If they really wanted to grow their subscriber base, they could offer a no-subscription service like Sky do in the UK (freesat from sky), which includes the FTA channels plus a few extras. They could also allow viewers to own their own technology, and to buy a couple of extra set-top-boxes for second rooms, without having to pay an extra monthly fee.

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