‘Go enjoys dominant position in digital TV’

Go, a commercial company, had total monopoly and enjoyed a dominant position in digital TV, which went against the concept of pluralism in broadcasting, Gino Cauchi (PL) charged on Monday.

He was referring to the fact that Malta was facing a situation where it would be using one frequency for digital television while the second frequency would be held in reserve for future HD transmissions.

The frequency which would now be used would only be able to transmit six channels. This created a situation whereby it would be impossible to introduce new stations. Furthermore, Malta currently had seven TV stations: PBS, Channel 22, Net, Smash, One, Calypso and Favourite TV. This meant that either Calypso or Favourite would have to be left out. This certainly did not favour pluralism.

There were eight applications for network operators qualifying also as GIOs under the process launched by the MCA and MBA. The three chosen were PBS, Multiplus and Go. Eventually it resulted that PBS was chosen as the only network operator but entered in a joint venture with GO which in the meantime had absorbed Multiplus.

It seemed that the MCA, MBA and PBS were comfortable with this position although he expressed doubts on total synergy between the MBA and the government on the whole process. He requested that all correspondence on the process be tabled in the House.

TV stations had to pay €16,000 annually to PBS to operate on the network when originally they had been asked to pay €5,800 per annum, and indication was given in 2009 that all costs would be carried by GO. There was no guarantee that they would not have to incur other expenses. This made things difficult for the TV stations when they also had to pay licence fees to the BA and were not receiving any revenue from cable companies.

TV stations did not have a guarantee of a good quality picture through the digital network. This was mainly because while other European countries had opted for the Mpeg 4 compression technology system, Malta had opted for the Mpeg 2 system which had been discarded by most other countries since 2006. This was happening despite the fact that experts had told Maltese providers in 2009 that terrestrial digital receiver technology had switched to the Mpeg 4 system to guarantee the best TV picture possible.

Mr Cauchi criticised the government for failing to keep to the established changeover day from analogue to digital on December 31, 2010. He added that four months later Parliament was still discussing amendments to the law.

Despite some publicity campaigns, consumers had not been told that they were not guaranteed viewing of Italian television channels through the aerial or decoder system. There were still between 10,000 and 16,000 households using the aerial system. The only solution for these consumers to be guaranteed viewing of foreign free-to-air channels was through a paid subscription to a cable company.

He queried the authority given to the minister responsible for the sector to approve the setting up of other stations under the government-controlled station. He declared that if these stations were to be used to increase imbalance against the PL, this would not be acceptable to the opposition.

He also called for clarification on the terms “interactive gaming” and “gambling content” when the BA considered that lotto and Super Five amounted to gambling and should, therefore, not be advertised on TV stations. All stations would suffer losses amounting to thousands of euro if these adverts were stopped. This issue should be dealt with so that stations could regulate themselves.

Stations were also at a disadvantage because they were prohibited from carrying certain adverts that could be featured in newspapers, cinemas and on billboards.

The opposition would table certain amendments in committee stage, Mr Cauchi said.