LAST week, a Digital Dialogue Conference held in Johannesburg, South Africa, and at the end of the event, majority of the participants were of the opinion that the possibility of African nations meeting the 2015 deadline for migration to digital broadcasting was slim.
Apart from that, the public who access television services free on air will have to spend a little more when digitization is completed, for everyone will now have to purchase a set top box (STB — decoder to you) before TV signals can be received.
The Digital Dialogue Conference, powered by global pay TV leader, Multichoice saw tens of journalists from many African countries participating at the event which held at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg.
The conference kicked off earnestly with a welcome address and introduction of the participants by South African technology journalist, Aki Anastasiou who also moderated the event, after which Vicki Myburgh of PriceWaterhouseCoopers opened the dialogue proper with a presentation titled Entertainment and Media Outlook 2012-2016 — The End of the Digital Beginning.
Myburgh in her presentation said that digital migration is transforming the Entertainment and Media (E&M) sector into one of collaborative partnerships in the post-recessionary environment. However, this trend also puts revenues in the sector under pressure, with the shift from higher-priced physical distribution to lower-priced digital distribution.
She further noted that the global economy began to recover in 2010 from its steep decline in 2009 and continued to advance in 2011, although the hoped-for pickup in momentum did not materialize consistently around the globe.
“Global entertainment and media (E&M) spending rose 4.9 percent in 2011—a bit faster than the 4.5 percent increase in 2010 but still below gains in prior expansion years,” she said, adding that digital spending will drive global growth.
“Embedding and integrating digital operations at the heart of the enterprise delivers profitability, scalability and innovation,” she added.
After Myburghm Koenie Schutte, Managing Director at LS of SA Radio and Secretary, Southern African Digital Broadcasting Association (SADIBA) took the podium and walked participants through preparing for the migration of TV broadcast services to digital from analogue. According to him, the transition to Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) is about the consumer and the home environment.
His words: “The viewer has been promised more channels, great content which is the biggest incentive to migrate,” He said adding that if what is available on DTT is neither compelling nor attractive, migration will stall. Schutte noted that the requirement for greater spectrum efficiency has been the major drive for migration to digital broadcasting.”
According to Schutte, many TV households today use poor antennas and rely on marginal analogue TV reception. DTT will be on frequencies not necessarily covered by current antennas and new antenna and installation may cost more than the Set Top Box (STB).
“Digital broadcast means there will be at least a 36 per cent increase of spectrum and the mobile operators have their eyes on that, not switching will make life very difficult,” he said.Mr Schutte said that not switching to digital will eventually affect the economy, hence, limiting development because of the vast revenue generating opportunities that come with digital.
The UK Digital Communications Director, Ms Beth Thoren, said that adequate funding and a good communications strategy were the ingredients needed to switch over to digital.The UK became the first country in the world to switch to digital broadcasting this year, after seven years of educating the masses and laying out the communication messages.
Ms Thoren admitted that UK was lucky because it had 200 million US dollars at its disposal which was funded by broadcasters.”We were able to switch over because apart from the funding which is essential, we ensured that we were honest to the people about extra costs to them, we corrected and responded to all articles that were written about the campaign and we were firm about the date that would be switching over,” she said.
Other speakers included Jean-Louis Acafrao of DSTv Online. Terrestrial digital broadcasting carries many advantages over the analogue system — Expanded services, higher quality video and audio, greater variety and faster rates of data transmission, consistency of data flows over long distances, and more spectrum efficiency means more channels.