TV pleads for single regulator

By RICHARD BRADDELL

Television New Zealand has put its weight behind the telecommunications inquiry's view that an electronic communications commissioner be established to oversee both telecommunications and television markets.

At public hearings in Wellington yesterday, TVNZ told the inquiry that a single regulator was needed because the distinctions between television and telecommunications were rapidly becoming blurred.

Not only would a single regulator be cost-effective, it would avoid demarcation issues.

TVNZ also argued for immediate regulation of the set-top boxes used to decode digital signals, to avoid a proliferation of standards and boxes that would discourage consumers from going to more than one provider.

The set-top box was rapidly becoming the entry point for video, audio, telephony, computer data and internet access.

Since Sky was the only provider of digital services at the moment, it was likely to have first-mover advantage and become the effective gatekeeper to the market since consumers were reluctant to have more than one decoder, TVNZ said.

Evidence that telecommunications and television were converging included the emergence of web television, as offered by America Online and Microsoft, and on the new Sky digital services that would allow e-mails to be sent.

The introduction of personal video recorders that could play back videos on a computer was another sign of the distinction blurring.

"In the future there will simply be electronic communications," said TVNZ.

At present, its signals were analogue and plans to go digital had met Government resistance, but the broadcaster said analogue transmissions would eventually end, and an officials' committee was considering the date for that.

But by the time that happened, Sky set-top boxes, which would reject any signal other than Sky's, would be commonplace.

Sky later countered that it had pioneered New Zealand pay-TV with a $600 million "high-risk" investment.

It was not an anti-competitive gatekeeper and while it was common knowledge that its relationship with TVNZ had not been good, it was improving and Sky had never refused a broadcaster access to its satellite platform.

Sky's director of communications, Tony O'Brien, said correspondence presented to the inquiry had already indicated that it was prepared to provide non-discriminatory access to other broadcasters, and that included interactive services.

When challenged by inquiry member Allan Asher that Sky's position had been that telecommunications and television should operate under a separate regime, Mr O'Brien conceded that they were not entirely separate issues.

When pressed, he agreed that the idea of a single regulator was conceptually sound.

An Australian telecommunications analyst, Paul Budde, said people wanted to make their own choice of television content "on the fly" or according to what was offered at the time.

They did not want to be forced by the delivery arrangements to choose between a bundle offered by one company or a bundle from another.

If regulators failed to protect the set-top box, this would happen.