The provision of additional standard definition television signals over free-to-air broadcasting services. Multichannelling is possible through the use of digital signals rather than analogue, which increases the amount of data that can be provided.
Source: Victorian Electronic Democracy Glossary
I have just been reading the ABC's Submission to the Review of the Provision of Services Other Than Simulcasting by Free-to-Air Broadcasters on Digital Spectrum, which poses some interesting questions in regards to the future of free-to-air television. Unfortunately I couldn't find a date on it, some of the references are late 2004, so I am guessing it is from around 2005.
The submission argued that the primary benefit enabled by digital technology - diversity - is being 'undermined' by the Government's decision to place genre restrictions on multichannelling of government owned stations SBS and ABC and 'accordingly...argues that these restrictions should be removed' .
In Federal Communications Minister Helen Coonan's July 13 2006 Press Conference on Media Reforms, she announced changes to multichannelling. When the first versions of the reforms were released, the commercial stations were not allowed multichannelling, only ABC and SBS were given genre restrictions. However, now from 2009, the current commercial stations can have 'one standard definition multichannel... and to allow full multichannelling no later than the time of digital switchover' (currently 2010-2012).
No comments:
Post a Comment