Tech given straight: Response to the Ofcom Digital dividend Review

The following is a copy of the e-mail I sent to Ofcom about their Digital Dividend Review. With any luck Ofcom will try and steer UK freeview TV in a high quality direction (picture and content) rather than the current lowest common denominator approach.

High definition on Freeview

Summary:-

- The increase in channels on Freeview has lead to the thinning out of advertising revenue.

- The thinning out of advertising revenue has meant TV stations taking fewer risks and turned many into copy cat quiz shows in the evening.

- The increase in channels has also lead to higher compression ratios and thus reduced picture quality.

- There is a balance between having enough TV stations needed to satisfy the diverse needs in our society and having so many that the quality of programmes and picture quality decline. Do we really need seven quiz shows broadcast simultaneously?.

- By allocating enough spectrum from the DDR to High definition Public Service Broadcasts you are in effect helping to prevent dilution of the market and thus keep quality high among TV channels.

- Most OECD countries (even Mexico!) and numerous other countries already have or are planning High Definition OTA broadcasts. The UK would become the “old man” of Europe if we failed to keep up.

- Citizens including myself believe that the UK should be a technology leader rather than a laggard. By adopting HD for at least the PSB’s (Public Service Broadcasters) we are sending a clear message that we are a hi tech country.

- HD OTA broadcasts would help drive the adoption of HD televisions and provide an economic benefit to many UK companies.

As the amount of channels has increased on Freeview then inversely the advertising revenue available to each channel has decreased as viewers are now spread more thinly. As a result of this we are seeing the quality of programming on commercial channels decrease significantly.

The other side effect of increased channels is that because there is only a finite amount of bandwidth the increased compression needed to add the extra channels decreases the picture quality. Programs screened on ITV3 and ITV4 are often rendered un-watchable due to MPEG artifacts and macro blocking as the compression rate is simply far too high (examples below).

While choice is undoubtedly a good thing and the addition of extra channels on free OTA broadcasting allows a greater variety of interests to be served there is clearly a balance between choice and quality, and at the moment it looks like that balance has been exceeded as night time broadcasts offer very little in the way of either diversity or quality.

I say this as Freeview is now plastered with quiz shows in the evening due to some channels turning away from their normal shows and over to broadcasting often highly questionable quiz shows (look at the bottom of this page) that are not only facsimile’s of each other but also bring little social value. Surely the advent of tens of channels on OTA broadcasting was designed to bring variety yet this is simply not happening in the evening. Obviously there is more money in the quiz shows than traditional forms of television which have been funded by advertising. While commercial channels are designed, and have every right, to make a profit they are also in a unique position compared to all other commercial enterprises as they are effectively allowed into people’s living rooms and bedrooms. Thus, there must be some form of balance in what is broadcast on the limited number of free OTA channels. In this case that balance must come from Ofcom and not the free market which is only concerned with the money side of broadcasting.

By allocating some of the spectrum in the digital dividend to High Definition services from PSB’s you will in a sense be steering the market away from channel saturation and thus prevent the finite amount of viewers (and thus advertising revenue) being diluted even more thinly. This is not intervening, but merely steering.

The knock on effect is that commercial channels will have more advertising revenue available and be able to create higher quality shows and start taking more risks again and go beyond the staple viewer funded quiz show format.

While a bigger choice of channels was rated more highly in Ofcom’s research than HD, this was clearly under the assumption that more channels would create more choice and diversity. Unfortunately, the market has shown that an increase in channels does not necessarily lead to greater diversity and thus the social impact that could be made by an increase in channels (and thus variety) simply isn’t happening.

I believe that Ofcom should help steer the market in a different and more sustainable direction by allocating some of the digital dividend to High Definition PSB broadcasts and, hopefully, local television too.

Examples of poor quality pictures due to high compression rates:-

Macro blocking – Seen in fasting moving sequences even on BBC1