The Australian Government's plans for digital television, due to be announced on 21 December 1999, will not please major players News Corp and Fairfax, but Nine and Ten should have grins on their faces.
Under the plans, datacasting will be restricted to a text format, and free-to-air broadcasters will have to transmit two different digital standards as well as the present analogue signal until 2008.
From 2008, viewers will have to spend several thousand dollars to upgrade their sets.
Potential datacasters John Fairfax and News Corporation Limited had campaigned to be allowed to broadcast a range of new consumer services under datacasting.
High-definition TV will also mean higher production costs for Australian advertisers. But the manager of post-production at Melbourne's largest facility AAV Australia John Fleming said that a cheaper alternative is available in the interim. Fleming indicated on 20 December 1999 that while ads produced in HD will be expensive, most advertisers will produce ads in the wide -screen standard-definition format (SD) format which could be "upcovered" by the networks to HD.
The Australian Government is expected to soon announce a change in digital TV policy which would require the TV networks to transmit both cinema quality HD and lower-quality SD TV signals. But this will require TV advertisers to follow suit prompting concern on ad costs from the Australian Association of National Advertisers.
