The road towards full digital TV

On December 31, 2010 Maltese television will switch over to digital signals and the old analogue transmissions will be switched off for good. While Malta seems to be gearing itself up to meet the historic deadline, the digital revolution has changed TV a lot, and there is no turning back. Ignoring the great psycho-cultural impact of these technological changes is a recipe for disaster.

These were some of the ideas floated at the annual conference of the Malta Communications Authority that discussed the future of digital TV in Malta. Local and foreign speakers were invited to share their views and experience about a changeover that all members of the European Union have to go through.

Pierre Cassar, chief executive officer of the Malta Broadcasting Authority gave a situation report of how the authorities are preparing for the switchover.

The MCA and the MBA are spearheading the change process while PBS has been charged with operating the new digital terrestrial TV (DTTV) network that will be set up to host up to six local free to air stations to be available in digital format. Free to air television is considered to be the right of every citizen, he reassured.

Mr Cassar did not try to sell digital TV, since the majority of Maltese have already embraced and started benefitting from digital-quality TV. This included better picture and sound quality and electronic programme guides.

However it is estimated that up to 16 per cent of local households still rely on analogue free to air television and they are not subscribed to pay-per-view services from the local commercial cable and DTTV operators. These free to air channels will cease their analogue transmissions on the night of December 31, 2010 and will immediately start broadcasting in digital format, requiring viewers to have digital set-top boxes or TV sets with built-in DTTV capabilities to continue watching these free-to-air channels. The six slots available on PBS's new digital TV network are open to local TV stations that are of general interest and the MBA will soon publish the criteria and call for applications. TVM will automatically qualify for one of the slots.

A public communication campaign will be launched next year, peaking towards the final quarter of 2010. Mr Cassar said this will be based on a differentiated strategy addressing different segments through different media. It will also provide basic technical information on the use of the set-up box and help viewers with troubleshooting.

While the CEO of Malta's broadcasting watchdog explained how we are getting there, Fr Joe Borg, a university lecturer in media communication, put this important step in the wider context of the a larger technological revolution.

"What if Moses had a laptop instead of stone tablets?" was his provocative question when he attempted to explain that the medium in hand will certainly affect the message, so much so that if Moses had a laptop he would have probably been given many more than 10 commandments because a computer can hold and process much more information in a smaller form factor than stone.

Fr Borg explained how digitalisation is radically changing TV, where viewers have become producers who share their productions online and the mass media are going from a push to a pull model.

"The years of stations targeting mass audiences are probably numbered. The internet will be the natural habitat of such stations," he asserted.

In a suggestion reminiscent of Marshall McLuhan's "the medium is the message" theory, Fr Borg explained how technology more than content is the basis of social change and cultural innovation. The digitalisation process had brought convergence of the media, a re-organisation of society, a blurring of the meaning of reality, a new definition of the human person, instant culture, and networking.

All these have raised new issues and questions that need to be answered. Today we sometimes find it difficult to distinguish between what is real and what is not, e.g. the distinction between real 'friends' and virtual 'friends' we find on social network such as Facebook.

"Is the electronic networking of the digital media really creating a global village based on solidarity or is it creating new divides? Is privacy a basic human right or a perversion? Is digitalisation humanising us or dehumanising us?

Are we amusing ourselves to death or are we being enlightened? Saying that technology is the only way forward without realising its great psycho-cultural impact and finding an answer to this myriad of questions is a recipe for disaster," he warned in his concluding remark.

The change to digital TV is talking place all over Europe and the MCA's conference brought several foreign speakers to share their experience and views about this EU-wide exercise.

Daniel Pataki, chairman of the Radio Spectrum Policy Group and president of the Hungarian Communications Authority, cautioned that developments in the TV market need to be tackled as an evolution rather than a revolution. He touched upon the spectrum paradox - spectrum is a very important national resource but its efficient utilisation in one state is strongly influenced by the actions of bordering countries.

Daniel Sauvet-Goichon, chairman of DigiTAG, said the winning model in countries that have already switched seems to be a mix of free-to-air and pay digital TV transmissions. A model that Malta will, in fact be following, according to the MCA.