ASIA-PACIFIC BROADCASTING

KUALA LUMPUR – To guide countries in the Asia-Pacific region to go digital, the ABU has produced an interesting step-by-step roadmap to implementing DTV services. The roadmap illustrates nine key areas of concern for the government, industry and the public.

  Arambewale said the issues that need to be addressed “are government broadcasting legislation, government and regulatory readiness, cooperative planning approach, broadcasters business planning, economic impact considerations, industry infrastructure, technology considerations and technical infrastructures, consumer understanding and preparedness, and digital roll-out time frames”.  

The roadmap highlighted the daunting tasks that must be shouldered by the governments of the region in ensuring smooth introduction of the DTV services.

To indicate that their initiatives are of paramount importance, governments have been placed right on top of the roadmap diagram.

Given the estimated eight to10 years it will take for the complete roll-out of digital broadcasting services, the governments’ sustained positive intervention is indispensable as it will affect all other areas of concern.  For instance, capital expenditure, annual operating costs and long-term economic impact that come along with the conversion from analogue to digital depend largely on both the government’s fiscal and monetary policies.

While contributing to digital infrastructure spending, the government can encourage more investments in capital equipment by stabilising interest rates.    

“Government should address the overall benefits and matching [appropriate] set of services that digital broadcasting services can provide to the public,” said Arambewale.

In the absence of political will, Arambewale warned of the  “serious legal, regulatory, business and implementation issues that could hamper the introduction of digital broadcasting services”.  

Aside from the political resolve, an adept handling of the transition period by the governments is imperative. The political leaderships’ ability to carry out a balancing act is particularly critical to avoid the premature termination of analogue services.  

“Governments need to be careful that analogue services are not terminated prematurely, lured or attracted by the new and potentially lucrative revenue streams that may come from non-broadcasting services,” Arambewale said.

To pave the way to successful digital implementation in Asia, governments must start proper spectrum planning early and announce how they intent to apportion the bandwidth and what new regulations would be in place to govern all organisations broadcasting or streaming digital content.

 

 

 

 

 

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