The Federal Opposition has released its planned amendments to the Government’s digital broadcasting
legislation, before it goes before the federal Senate on Wednesday.
Core to the Australian Labor Party‘s
(ALP) proposal is an overhaul of the Government’s definition of
datacasting, which to this point has allowed the planned legislation to
restrict content distribution particularly by non free-to-air broadcaster
players.
These restrictions include limiting the duration of datacasts to 10
minutes, and preventing content from falling within the domains of
established broadcasters, such as drama or lifestyle content.
Publisher John Fairfax and
telecommunications carrier Telstra
have already pulled out of the datacasting trials set to start in July and
August, declaring that these restrictions impair the commercial viability
of datacasting.
Labor’s alternative framework would allow datacasters to basically show
anything, as long as it is presented through interactive menus to
distinguish datacast content from that of broadcasters, said ALP
communications spokesman Stephen Smith.
Smith believed that with Labor’s proposed model, datacasters would not
become merely de facto broadcasters. This was among the concerns expressed
on Monday by Internet Industry
Association executive director Peter Coroneos (see story).
Coroneos called the bill as it now stands a ‘kiss of death’ for the
growth of the datacasting industry in Australia. He said that it would
“send a negative signal to the international investment community” because
it tended toward existing broadcasters in the battle to digitally
distribute content.
“Potential competitors to free-to-air broadcasters have no incentive to
invest in either broadband content development for or delivery via
spectrum,” said Coroneos of the current proposed legislation.
The ALP’s new position on the datacasting bill is a marked change though
from its original support of the “general thrust of the Government’s
legislation,” said Corneos.
As well as its own framework, Labor has released amendments to the
Government’s bill in an effort to win the support of independent and
Democrat senators that may not be swayed by a completely new model.
The main change within these amendments is to allow educational programs
to be linked to a course of study, and allow material designed mainly to
entertain. The legislation makes no specific requirements of educational
content, permitting all datacasters to distribute content in this genre.
The ALP also wants to limit free-to-air broadcasters’ ability to enhance
programming with added information through datacasting.
As far back as April, the national Productivity Commission Report into
Digital Broadcasting concluded that the Government’s digital television
conversion plan required “significant changes”. The Commission called for a
relaxation of the restrictions to datacasting then, saying it would help
enhance the benefits of digital television, as in its current form it
“stifles competition and innovation”.
The Commission added that the legislation would delay consumer adoption
of digital television technology, reduce business opportunities to develop
new products and services and impact on regional consumers. These were all
comments that Coroneos reinforced in his warning to the Federal Government
Monday.
