Report Overview

Taking Free-to-Air TV online in Australia: opportunities and challenges

The report is designed to enumerate the key technical, commercial and equity issues that would arise in the course of such a migration, providing insights and identifying problems that would need to be addressed.

Amongst other things, this requires an examination of Australia’s digital infrastructure and its capacity to support television distribution, the media and telecommunications business models that would need to be adapted, and the response of households to the changes in consumer technology that would be required. A household survey was also undertaken to inform this report, and details are included in the Appendix. The report is not a proposal that free-to-air television should entirely move to online delivery, nor is it a strategy to get there. Nor is it a cost-benefit analysis.

Contents

Introduction

Project context and funding

The aim of this report

Executive Summary

State of the free-to-air television industry

What is distinctive about free-to-air television?

Rising competition

Current arrangements for free-to-air broadcasting transmission and distribution

Issues in the migration of FTA broadcasting: industry

Network capabilities: speeds

Network capability: capacity and reliability

Network resilience

Network coverage

Some transitional considerations

Issues in the migration of FTA broadcasting: viewers

Installed base of broadband connections and Internet TVs

Appendix: household survey methodology

Figures

Figure 1: Average viewing time for FTA, BVOD and Pay TV (mins/user/day)

Figure 2: Nbn “best efforts” pricing construct

Figure 3: Nbn “best efforts” wholesale price structure (recurring charges only)

Figure 4: Nbn Multicast pricing structure (recurring charges)

Figure 5: Age distribution of respondents

Figure 6: Household arrangements

Figure 7: Household income distribution