The South African pay-TV broadcaster M-Net is again warning over the South African government's attempt to push encryption into free-to-air public, digital television when the switch to digital terrestrial television (DTT) starts.
In a new print advert, M-Net is warning the
country that the South African government's plan to force a built-in encryption
system into set-top boxes (STBs) for free, public television under a digital
television dispensation is and will be "expensive, complicated and
unnecessary".
TV experts are warning about the next "e-toll
disaster" for television waiting to happen when tens of millions of South African TV
households – still largely kept in the dark about the looming switch from
analogue to DTT in a process known as digital migration – discover that they
will be forced to pay hundreds of rands to buy a STB just to continue to watch
the free and public TV channels they're currently watching.
Viewers will have to pay R800 or more – and
in some cases be forced to also buy an antenna – just to keep watching their
favourite soap like Generations,
news bulletin or local TV drama.
An encryption system will further complicate
the boxes and the system, and up the price.
South Africa's digital migration process is
hugely delayed while the cost of implementation, as well as the cost to
consumers of the TV boxes, keeps escalating.
The government which is still to explain the
subsidy process clearly, will only subsidise the "poorest of the poor" but even
they will still have to fork over hundreds of rands to buy a STB.
Digital TV: More
about jobs than about viewers
If an encryption system has to be built into
STBs – irrespective of whether it is used or not – it will make the STBs more
expensive due to the technology and hardware (the additional parts) as well as
encryption software licensing rights.
However, it will also create a protective "bubble" for the local decoder manufacturing industry. It will create jobs because
it will mean that only STBs made in South Africa, with an encryption system for
public television, and custom-made for South Africa, will work here.
Imported overseas STBs or TV sets with
built-in digital TV receivers that adhere to the SABS standards for these
decoders and which may be cheaper, better or more desired by consumers, will
never work if South African free-to-air television is forced to have STBs with
a built-in encryption system.
The South African government wants to use the
switch to digital television for job creation, having shifted the focus away
from the ordinary TV viewer during the delayed process the past half a decade.
Job creation is now the overriding concern – which is why the battle of
encryption of free television is raging, instead of what is best for the tens
of millions of TV viewers who will have to buy new technology in order to keep
watching television.
Entire TV biz
affected
The majority of South African broadcasters –
all community TV stations, the SABC, MultiChoice which runs DStv, and M-Net –
are opposed to the encryption of public access television. E.tv and some local
manufacturers want an encryption system, saying it will protect TV content and
local STB manufacturing.
Although M-Net is a pay-TV broadcaster with
its own TVdecoders (which contains an encryption system since it is a subscription
television service), it is highly concerned about the issue of encryption for free
television.
The South African pay-TV broadcaster plans to
do a "hard swop" of decoders (asking all its subscribers to bring in and
fast-change to new decoders) but will still be impacted by the massive switch
because although it is a pay-TV broadcaster, it also remains a terrestrial
broadcaster.
While M-Net can switch easier because the
company knows who its subscribers are and where they live, it will be much more
difficult to get the millions of people watching SABC channels and e.tv
channels to switch.
However, the SABC, e.tv and M-Net will
jointly have to keep broadcasting their currently analogue signals as well as
their new digital signal(s) until enough people have switched – a period known
as “dual illumination”.
Or put in another way: M-Net, although it is
a pay-TV terrestrial broadcaster, cannot switch off its current, old analogue
signal, unless the free-to-air terrestrial broadcasters SABC and e.tv can also
switch off theirs.
It means that all the South African
broadcasters are joined at the hip in a sense when it comes to DTT. Athough an
M-Net would conceivably be able to complete its switch faster, it wouldn’t be
able to turn its analogue signal off and will have to wait for the SABC and
e.tv.
