BBC Urges Set-Aside for Free Over-Air HDTV After Analog Cutoff
A full auction of the spectrum now used for analog TV will harm the U.K.’s chance for free terrestrial HDTV, the BBC said Tues. The lack of free HDTV broadcasts also will cost the U.K. Pounds 4.1 billion-Pounds 15.6 billion in “private and social value,” the public service broadcaster (PSB) said. Its comments came in response to the Digital Dividend Review published by telecom regulator Ofcom, which favors a “technology neutral auction” of the spectrum released by nation’s 2008-2012 switchover to standard definition DTV.
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In its response, BBC argued allocation for part of the freed spectrum to PSBs to develop free-to-air, universally available HDTV channels. Because there isn’t enough spectrum now, HDTV is only available in the U.K. by subscription to the Sky-HD satellite package. BBC conducted a brief and limited HDTV trial last year using some Freeview DTV frequencies. “Consumers want HD-quality television, and are buying equipment in order to receive HD services. There are compelling reasons to believe that it will become a technology with widespread appeal,” BBC said.
Even after switchover, there won’t be enough capacity in the current DTV infrastructure to carry that “critical mass” without removing existing services or “eroding their quality,” BBC said. Also, auctioning all the freed spectrum puts PSBs at a disadvantage, it said: “There is no business model for free-to-air HD on DTT at this stage that could enable free-to-air broadcasters to sustain likely auction prices.”
Accordingly, BBC argued a minimum of 1/3 of the Digital Dividend should be allocated to PSBs “to enable them to launch a strong free-to-air offer: at least one DTT multiplex with universal coverage providing three HD channels.” This would kick-start a migration to more- efficient MPEG-4 receivers that could, over time, be used by SD-DTV services to improve spectrum efficiency, BBC said. The current DTV system uses MPEG-2 compression.
Not all the Digital Dividend is required to support HDTV. Much of the spectrum would be available for other uses, which could include local TV, mobile TV, radio microphones, rural wireless broadband or even more standard TV channels, BBC said. Only the UHF spectrum in the Digital Dividend “is suitable for high definition or other television channels. But much more spectrum, which could be used for some of the above or other uses, is to be auctioned in due course.”
In its response to Ofcom, BBC also disclosed findings of independent consultants that the loss to the U.K. in private and social value is likely to range from Pounds 4.1 billion to Pounds 15.6 billion if PSBs aren’t able to develop terrestrial HDTV services. In research carried out by for BBC by Indepen Consulting, it calculated the loss of “private value” based on DTV households that remain without HD, and the cost of upgrading to another platform, such as Sky-HD, for the 6 million households that choose to switch to get HDTV.