TV bosses see red over digital broadcasting

Television station bosses yesterday unleashed a vociferous attack on the Malta Communications Authority contesting its decision to grant a digital terrestrial licence to Maltacom and Multiplus while turning down their request for a free-to-air digital frequency.

At a breakfast meeting organised by The Malta Business and Financial Times, Smash Communications director Joe Baldacchino told Colin Camilleri, the MCA's chief technical officer who had just addressed the meeting, that a situation where free-to-air channels were offered at a charge to clients was unacceptable.

Smash TV had been the first station to start test transmissions in digital terrestrial last December but was stopped by the MCA pending the allocation of frequencies. The station refused to form part of the Multiplus digital terrestrial "Free Plus" package.

"Why is the MCA putting spokes in the wheels to us when free-to-air channels abroad have been subsidised and encouraged to go digital," an irate Mr Baldacchino asked.

He said it was not fair that viewers would be billed to watch PBS when they were already paying their licences and wondered if this situation was acceptable to the political parties when Nationalists and Labourites who donated money to open Net and Super 1 TVs would have to pay to watch their stations on the new networks.

Mr Camilleri had ascertained during his intervention earlier that by 2010 all local stations would have to go digital, implying that free-to-air channels, which can till now be received free by the use of a TV antenna or through a subscription with Melita Cable, would start being offered at a charge to people. When grilled by members of the audience, he categorically said that viewers would not have to pay for free-to-air channels.

Following Mr Baldacchino's comments, Super One TV's managing director, Michael Vella Haber, said he was perplexed as to why Maltese channels could not keep their free-to-air status on the digital platform, asking the MCA officer when would local free-to-air channels be granted a licence.

"The MCA told us that the government decided when the free-to-air frequencies would be granted. When we spoke to the ministry we were referred to the MCA," Mr Vella Haber said.

"The policy is in the government's hands," Mr Camilleri insisted, explaining that the MCA had reserved three frequencies for free-to-air channels and that it was "absolutely not the case that digital TV would have to be against payment".

Maltacom's chief executive officer Stephen Muscat, who spoke at length about his company's venture to provide digital TV, said he did not watch television because no antenna signal reached his area. Mr Muscat said he refused "in principle" to subscribe to Melita Cable.

PBS chief executive officer Andrew Psaila said PBS had a constitutional obligation to air free of charge and said the station would remain free of charge, save for the yearly licence which was "a separate issue".

"It's a question of updating TV sets to meet the demands of the new technology," Mr Psaila said, adding that viewers would only have to pay for a "set-box" - a sort of decoder necessary to receive a digital signal. "It's not different from when colour TV replaced black and white. People had to buy a colour television set," Mr Psaila said.