KEY POINTS:
A host of submissions on the digital broadcasting review are now available online and point to the diverging views of the various industry players that will be affected by the Government's sweeping review.
The submissions make for interesting reading - evidence of the natural self-interest of the various companies in the market and the differing views they have on many issues. Computerworld sums up some of those differences.
Both the Mediaworks and TVNZ submissions pile the pressure on arch-rival Sky TV.
"The public is not well served by having a Pay TV monopoly in New Zealand," writes Mediaworks in its submission.
"As with any monopoly, there are few controls on pricing and New Zealanders are charged fees in excess of what would be likely in a competitive situation. This allows SKY to charge their customers $600 for the installation but not ownership of a MY SKY box, for example, and to force subscribers to take a minimum basic service that consists of over 20 channels, some of which may be of no interest to the subscriber. The choice for New Zealanders is SKY or no Pay TV," it adds.
The answer argues Mediaworks is to provide "seed funding" for more Freeview channels to create a more viable free to air alternative and to introduce legislation to force Sky to divest itself of its free to air channel, Prime.
TVNZ goes for the jugular as well, proposing anti-siphoning and unbundling provisions "to restrict rights holders from selling to a single buyer/selling a single package/selling combined Pay TV/FTA rights. This would improve access by New Zealanders to events of national importance, provide consumers with greater choice and guard against monopoly behaviour".
Sky's submission is here, and basically says that the current model of broadcasting is fine, there's no problem with access, investment or the level of local content.
Elsewhere there are other differences of opinion. TVNZ wants a single regulator to cover the whole digital broadcasting scene. Vodafone disagrees.
"While converged models make sense in addressing content standards and classification, and separately advertising standards, from a commercial and competition perspective the industries should be dealt with separately."
Elsewhere, there's some pragmatic suggestions from the likes of internetNZ.
You can expect many months of lobbying ahead as the Government grapples with how to regulate digital broadcasting - these submissions indicate how complex and divisive the issue is as telecoms and internet providers start to overlap with broadcasters.
In the blogosphere
Meanwhile, all eyes will be on the budget tomorrow to see what the Government has in store for broadband. Russell Brown has an interesting analysis of National's fibre plan and casts doubt on some of the financial numbers that have been bandied around. The question is whether what Labour unveil in the budget is any more realistic.
Rod Drury suggests some possible areas of focus for growing the ICT industry is his blog today with education and IT skills training high up the list.
