Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I commend the whip on a marvellous contribution to this bill which was previously given. The Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Primary Television Broadcasting Service) Bill 2015 amends the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 principally to allow free-to-air broadcasters to deliver programming on their primary television service in either standard-definition or high-definition formats.

In the past there has been a requirement for the main channel of a television network to broadcast only in standard definition. This was principally brought into place a number of years ago because the majority of people who had televisions were not able to get access to the high-definition format. In the interests of equity and universal reach for people to access their primary television channel it was essential to mandate that the television networks have a format that would allow everybody to access that particular format for their television broadcast.

Since that time we have seen a massive proliferation of different types of formats and different media through which we see our television networks broadcast. Most of them have many different channels, and it has been allowed that on those other channels they are able to broadcast in high-definition format. However, we have continued to require the broadcasters to broadcast their primary television service in standard definition.

This bill seeks to allow the broadcasters to transmit high definition—and this is particularly relevant, as Senator Bushby pointed out in his contribution—for sporting activities such as the grand finals of the two major codes of football. Obviously high-definition television is a superior form of broadcast. We have found that almost everybody in Australia will have access to high-definition television. My understanding is that that there is almost nobody who will not be able to access high definition. We know that across Australia, if you look at both the codes—the NRL and the AFL—there are not too many people who do not like to watch the footy final and to have the opportunity to watch in high-definition television, which is obviously something that I think a majority of Australians would welcome. The purpose of the bill is to allow that to occur.

The reform arose from the review of the digital television regulatory framework which was conducted during the past year. The proposal received strong support from free-to-air broadcaster, but most particularly the reforms received overwhelming support from the public.

The primary broadcasting service is the main service of a free-to-air broadcaster and they allocate a traditional service. When you turn your television on to Channel 7, Channel 9 or Channel 10, that is their primary service. They then have a number of other services that sit behind it which are not their primary service. These obligations relate to matters such as Australian content, captioning and antisiphoning. The primary broadcast channel has a series of rules that apply to it that do not apply to their subsidiary services. As I said, the primary services include Channel 7, Channel 9, Channel 10 and the main stations of the ABC and SBS. In general these five main services attract higher audiences than the multichannels. That is the reason why in the past the government has always sought to possibly regulate in a more robust and stricter way the primary channels of the broadcasters, whereas the multichannels that they put on for additional content are probably less regulated and have greater scope for flexibility.

Why are these requirements needed? Basically the requirement for broadcasters to provide their primary service in standard definition was introduced at the start of the digital switch-over process, which was over 10 years ago. It was a time when it would have been very easy for the main channels to switch over to high definition. Ensuring and mandating that they stayed at standard definition allowed a more seamless transition so that we did not find that people were left without adequate service. At the time, many of the television sets were not able to receive high definition, and not all set-top boxes were able to receive high-definition content. So basically the government wanted to ensure that viewers would have access to at least one digital channel per broadcaster. However, you will find that nowadays high-definition television equipment can be found in just about every home in Australia. I think a Newspoll survey conducted early last year after the completion of the digital switch-over found that 96 per cent of all households had a main television set or a set-top box capable of receiving high-definition content. It is expected that this figure has probably grown since then. The capability generally in the market is that nobody who is buying a new television now is buying a television that would not be able to access high definition. So the requirement to provide a primary channel in standard definition is largely obsolete. It also prevents broadcasters from providing services that respond to the audience preferences. As I mentioned earlier, overwhelmingly the public were in support of allowing the main broadcast channel to be able to access high-definition television format.

The bill does not actually require the broadcaster to provide their primary service in high definition; it gives them the opportunity to do so. We are not requiring them to broadcast their primary service in high definition but they will have the option of being able to provide the service in either high definition or standard definition depending on what the individual channel's market is demanding. Basically the reform will provide broadcasters with greater flexibility to make decisions about the types of services they offer in responding to customer demand. As you would probably agree, Mr Acting Deputy President, if we can give greater flexibility to our customers, our consumers and the people of Australia then we are certainly doing our job. It is not our job to be restrictive and over-prescriptive in the regulation that we place on consumers about what they can access—particularly in this space, which is an entertainment space; it is certainly not an essential service.

The question that was asked when we went out to the community was, 'Why is it important that services can be provided in high definition?' The fact is that we have seen an explosion of technology. Newer technology is driving consumer expectations. The free-to-air broadcasters need to have the opportunity to take advantage of this new technology and what it can deliver to consumers in terms of a higher quality broadcast. We are now seeing—particularly with the proliferation of different media on which consumers can get access to news, content, movies or whatever it happens to be—that people have an expectation that the quality of the service they are getting is going to be extremely high. As I said, the main television channels are predominantly the channels that people are watching—they have a higher audience reach than the multichannel transmissions—so it does not seem like an unreasonable expectation that the quality of the transmission of those main channels is as high as it possibly can be. The technology that is able to deliver that is available to those networks.

High-definition content is currently available pretty much across the whole of the pay TV networks, such as Foxtel, Netflix and Stan. All of those have high definition. It is particularly in sporting broadcasts that we can see the difference, Mr Acting Deputy President. You are probably not going to notice a great deal of difference when you are watching your nightly episode of Neighbours. But when you are watching the football final you probably will notice that the quality capability of high definition will give you a much better experience when you are watching Port Power or the Crows surge to victory in the grand final of this year's AFL.