The MySky recorder which Freeview seeks to emulate.

The MySky recorder which Freeview seeks to emulate.

The platform war between Freeview and Sky Television looks set to hot up with Freeview planning to have its own version of the MySky Personal Video Recorder (PVR) in the third quarter of 2008. The PVR - which will be configured to Freeview and its electronic programming guide, and carry its brand - will help redress Sky's advantage with 25,000 MySky machines.

Freeview has been talking with "several" electronics manufacturers to licence a PVR which allows viewers to time-shift programmes without the rigmarole of programming standard recorders. The Freeview platform for free-to-air digital television currently has 10 channels, but will expand in early April when TVNZ 7 is due to launch. Freeview will eventually be the main source for free-to-air television when analogue signals are eventually switched off

Freeview - which is run by TVNZ, MediaWorks and the government transmission company Kordia - estimates it has around 50,000 set-top boxes in circulation, compared to around 700,000 subscribers for Sky.

And new LCD and plasma TV sets in New Zealand will start including Freeview tuners inside the sets.

We wonder how the Freeview PVR will deal with TV commercials. Some PVRs allow users to flash straight past advertising breaks - which let's face it - is one of the big benefits.

MySky allows people to fast-forward through ad breaks but not skip past the entire break with one click. But the free-to-air channels are more dependent on ad revenue than Sky.

How will advertisers feel about the new world of free-to-air allowing fast-forwarding through breaks?

Sunday gets a helping handout

Television New Zealand has placed itself between the devil and the deep blue sea, taking $2.77 million of charter funding for the current affairs show Sunday.

The grant makes up around half of the show's budget and has broken a long-held expectation that TV news and current affairs stand on their own feet and do not take government subsidies. TVNZ offers a bizarre justification, saying the handout is because financially it did badly last year.

Spokeswoman Megan Richards said funding won't be repeated next year.

Clearly, TVNZ allows that current affairs should not normally get charter money. But when push comes to shove, independence no longer matters if you can use charter money to prop up profits.

The Paul Holmes show Whatever Happened to ... showed you can use the charter for commercial shows. Sunday shows can use it for commercial current affairs, but only when you are failing commercially. Something is wrong here.