AUCKLAND -- Kiwi politicians desperately want to speed up the shift to digital terrestrial television; they are just not keen to pay the cost.
Debate has been lagging, and there is no date set for switching off analog signals.
But next month, pubcaster TVNZ will unveil plans before the government for a DTV platform based on the BBC's Freeview in Blighty, which gives access to a bouquet of digital channels for the one-off cost of the digital receiver box.
In theory, the platform could be up and running by late 2007 or early 2008.
Government is expected to approve the plan in principle, but TVNZ execs privately doubt they will come up with the coin, estimated at between $200 million and $400 million, while other terrestrial broadcasters are not committing to the project
Proposal is under wraps, but it is believed to use government owned Transmission Holdings transmitters backed by a satellite beaming into areas with difficult terrain.
The TVNZ proposal has set off intense lobbying by Rupert Murdoch-controlled satcaster Sky, which has a monopoly on digital.
TVNZ's digital platform has had backing from broadcasters CanWest Mediaworks (TV3, C4) and Prime Television.
But Prime's support is in doubt now that Sky has bought the channel.
A major factor is that without a future digital role, state-owned Transmission Holdings has limited prospects; another is the urgent need for new capacity at TVNZ.
Government is under pressure to make good on its promises of more public-service and minority-interest programming.
As well as delivering existing channels, a new digital platform would allow TVNZ to develop channels for high-brow content, freeing it to focus on commercial content for TV One and TV2.
It's a tricky situation -- and one which TVNZ's newly appointed programming manager for its digital services unit, Juliet Etterington, will have to sort out.
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