What do you expect of your EPG?
ACMA has announced the minimum criteria expected of Electronic Programme Guides. But has it gone far enough?
- Published by David Knox
- on
- Filed under News
The Australian Communications and Media Authority has declared a number of minimum standards for electronic program guides provided by free-to-air broadcasters.
The key ingredients are what ACMA identifies to be uniformly available on EPGs for viewers, but at the same time only promises to act if broadcasters don’t meet the criteria.
“In general terms, ACMA will consider formal regulatory intervention if it forms a view that the EPG offering from industry participants does not conform with these general principles,” Chairman Chris Chapman said.
“The publication of the EPG Principles provides guidance and assistance to those supplying EPG data for free to air digital television services, by establishing a clear performance benchmark.”
The key principles it has outlined include:
– A free EPG provided by all FTA broadcasters
– accurate timing information (including starting-times)
– a minimum of seven days of schedule information
– inclusion of parental guidance ratings
The issue of what constitutes an acceptable EPG however, surely goes much further than ACMA’s barebones principles.
For instance, what is the point of having timing information if a network neglects to stick to it? Is ACMA now suggesting this bane of television viewing is now up for industry enforcement? We can only hope. Networks that are notorious for starting programmes late, always seem to manage their 6pm News starting on the dot.
Similarly, a seven day schedule dotted with ‘TBAs’ falls short of fulfilling its purpose. How will ACMA address networks which don’t release their information until days before airing? And what of programming changes -how quickly should a network be expected to update the information?
Other data overlooked in ACMA’s principles include “drill down” info such as synopsis, closed captions, repeat, movie year of release & country, widescreen and whether broadcast in HD or not.
ACMA only says its EPG Principles will need to be reviewed from time to time and that it will monitor the industry for compliance.
FreeTV Australia, which represents Free to Air networks, issued a supportive statement saying, “All commercial free-to-air networks have been broadcasting their program information over the air and in the clear for over a year and we welcome the certainty these principles provide the industry and Australian viewers.”
This week ACMA also announced the formation of a centralised Digital Television Branch to help with the task of bringing all viewers across to digital television by 2013, offering the industry a single point of contact.
41 Responses
I want a week standard or more set for all networks and HD channels + to all run on accurate times.
That is all.
bindi your impatience makes you miss the movie not 9 syain its’ the Late Movie. It like complaing the PC takes too long to start up (30 seconds) when it should be quick (15 seconds). Some extra seconds make little difference compared to missing the program when it says it starts at 10.30 and comes on at 10.50
On Tuesday night, Homemade ended and Two and A Half Men began at 8:42PM on Win in Country Victoria.
The EPG said 8:30PM.
I would argue that 12 minutes is more than a statistical anamoly but a genuine problem. Any program that starts twelve minutes later than the advertised time is going to be missed by a lot of viewers.
I believe that a fairly strong argument could be put that televisions guides (printed or electronic) represent a contract between the television network and the viewer. The network is asserting that it is going to provide a particular service at a particular time and the viewer is agreeing to watch that program (in essence, to purchase the service) at that time. The provision of the commercials as the fee for watching the program may be sufficient to be deemed to be an exchange of consideration and to make the contract binding.
I just wonder if anyone has ever attempted to seek damages from a network as a result of late programming and therefore a breach of the contract?
The hardest part would be proving the damage suffered – be it emotional or similar loss.
How pathetic. Since when do we need the government to regulate our television guides!? It’s bad enough that television itself can’t operate on a free market thanks to censorship, but this is just absurd. If you don’t like the way the networks conduct their businesses, read a book. Don’t go running off to your precious government demanding they interfere in private affairs.
i agree in relation to the title of the movie.. there is a description of the movie (including the cast !!) but no title.. how difficult could that be ?
ITA it’s amazing how all the networks manage to start their nightly news on time but as the night goes on the start times stretch to 5-10 or even 15 minutes late with no change in the EPG, but over on Austar the start times are to the minutes. If they know a show is starting late they say so and its usually right.
About time FTA picked up their game!
Andrew B “Why should we have to set 10-20 minutes overruns on PVRs just to make sure we get the show we want recorded?…” exactly well put, and even sometimes start them early…Seven and 30 rock
What is the point of enforcing accurate start times of EPGs when every other timetable has inaccurate times and they do nothing about it? I even wrote to the ACMA a year or so ago, complaining about overrunning shows, and they said that they are not in a position of power to enforce network lies about start times. Shortly thereafter, i stopped watching the commercial stations and started sourcing programming elsewhere.
the only one in compliance is 10, they have minute specific times but 7 and 9 don’t. ABC only covers 1 or 2 days, and this sometimes results in me missing shows coz i program once a week usually, SBS is probably ok but i never look at it. also 9 should change the way they list movies, they call them the saturday night movie, the late movie, the late late movie, you have to push another button to see what it actually is, this sometimes causes me to miss movies i would have otherwise watched, this never happens with 7 or 10 who name the movie properly.
So what’s really going to happen – they’ll have EPG guidelines which will be weak and never enforced probably allowing for a 5 minute grace, just like Cityrail’s definition of trains running “on time”. (@Paull – exactly what I compare them to as well!!)
Its the 21st Century. An EPG, from which most of our viewing and recording is derived, should show accurate times. Only 10 and ABC manages to do that all day and night.
Why should we have to set 10-20 minutes overruns on PVRs just to make sure we get the show we want recorded?
1. Put the title in the title. Yes I am talking about you channel Nine(Eastern States) putting it in the short description for movies. (Dumbarse freetv’s engineering guidelines.)
2. Not all CAPITALS, they suck to read.
3. Don’t truncate descriptions, use multiple extended event descriptors if required.
4. Content advisories and closed caption status should be included as well as rating.
The already stated, must be EIT based, 7 days.
Wish list:-
Language (for foreign films).
Director.
Year.
Cast.
Episode name (Nine(Eastern states) does this now, well done).
Country.
TV Anytime style series link stuff included.
Previously shown and Live indicated.
Proper HD and DD 5.1/etc indicated.
Channel 9 and Connex should merge. They both have problems delivering on time shows/services!!!!
i would like to see info on programs for channel 10’s epg, in perth we get nothing
WIN Tv are hopeless..infact all regionals are…Prime dont even bother sometimes and they certainly dont look like the screen grab used at the top of the article
All these FTA organisations are just plain woeful.
No wonder people are turning off in droves.
The other day my mother in law tells me that she finds her IQ unreliable in that it cuts off the ending of shows, this is the same machine that add five minutes to either side of a program to make sure you catch the whole thing – so I asked her
“Were you trying to record something on Channel Nine?”
“Yes actually”
There you have it. Back when Ten was copping all the media flack for their ridiculous overruns on reality skeins, Nine and Seven were beefing up their current affairs shows which sometimes run up to 40 minutes per night!
I used to absolutely hate watching something on Nine the switching channels (often to Ten) to find that the show I’d switched to had already been on for 7 minutes!
i certainly look forward to recieving accurate starting times for programmes on 7 and 9 (9 being the worst by far).
In fact, channel 9 is like city rail, never know when the train is going to come.
Channel ten are champions! Everyday they update their epg to reflect accurate starting times.
ABC needs to have more than a day or 2 on their epg, its annoying, youd think more from a network that has successfully used multi-channeling and online catchup.
this doesn’t go anywhere near as far as it should.
Well, Nine/WIN ran a movie last night. The EPG said “Tuesday Night at the Movies”. No more info. Still don’t know what the movie title was, but from ten seconds of it can remember it’s been on many times before. The timings displayed by all channels are way out. The information is frequently missing or just plain wrong. The claim that “All commercial free-to-air networks have been broadcasting their program information over the air and in the clear for over a year” is not correct. Some may say, a lie.
I have noticed that ABC only has 2-3 days worth of information on their EPG but they have the correct starting times ie Spicks & Specks 20:33-21:01. Nine here in Adelaide only go up to 3 days and i don’t know if it is a Win thing. The 9HD EPG is wrong with no breakaway programming listed but the HD demonstrations are their despite no longer airing. I am not sure if 9HD has a proper EPG or if it is 7 days on the PBL owned stations. The ABC and Nine would have to update their EPGs.
SBS has a 7 day EPG and SBS2 now has listings thankfully. Seven needs to put up accurate starting times as they usually start late. Ten are accurate on the day with 7 day listings.
All EPGs should be like Ten and SBS with 7 days and accurate starting times.
Will the ACMA act to make regional broadcasters adhere to these minimum standards? Here in Tasmania, the only reliable EPG available is provided by the ABC. SBS doesn’t appear to have any EPG information at all, TDT usually has information on that evening’s programs, at least, but Southern Cross, and in particular, WIN, are very unreliable. Not that I often watch WIN, but I have noticed that they have little or no EPG information more often than not, and SC is very inconsistent.
I don’t know how this compares with metropolitan areas (although I’d be interested to know if it’s any better – from your comments, David, it doesn’t sound it!), but industry enforcement would be welcome, as far as I’m concerned. It really is a guessing game with the networks these days, as too often the newspaper guides are out of date even the day they’re published – I’ve been caught out more than once. Thank goodness for this site!
FreeTV Australia, which represents Free to Air networks, issued a supportive statement saying, “All commercial free-to-air networks have been broadcasting their program information over the air and in the clear for over a year and we welcome the certainty these principles provide the industry and Australian viewers.”
My local Prime does not broadcast their program information over the air.
In Sydney, Seven starts their 6pm News at 05.59.45 on the dot each day, with Nine starting at 05.59,40 on the dot each day. Amazing how this is possible, but all other program start times stray all over the place, with Nine being the worst, sometimes even starting programs several minutes early. Why do they bother sending out an EPG at all? The techbology exists where the station presentation/transmission play out automation system can be linked to the EPG to give send out to the second actual start times. But I am sure the likes of Nine would rather choke than ever let that happen. No wonder Australia is one of the leading countries when it comes to sourcing programs off the net.
They need to specify that the EPG must be available via EIT at a minimum, otherwise the networks will happily “comply” by providing everything specified, but only via MHEG-5, which will only be available on Freeview-approved STBs/PVRs/TVs.
Can’t wait to see the comments on this one 🙂
I’ll be back later on to add the thoughts that many of you already know I’m going to have 😉