No Digital Dividend

During the 2012 Olympic Games in London, the digital programming shown on DTT was fascinating. It was noted though that the lack of good quality digital programs weakened the success story of the digital switchover. Most viewers, who were watching analogue programs via DTT, could not see the significance of the switchover.

While on one hand certain broadcasters in other countries could adopt a multi-channel strategy driven by reduced costs resulting from digitization, on the other hand, CEOs of terrestrial stations in Taiwan were not thrilled by the digital switchover. They had to invest substantial amounts in equipment, training, and awareness campaigns for digitization. Operators were not enthused to embrace this opportunity due to the saturation of the advertising market. This is dues to the high penetration of cable TV in Taiwan with approximately 80 percent of households enjoying 100 basic channels of foreign and local programming for less than USD20 per month.

Consequently, as soon as terrestrial television stations ascertained that they did not have enough funds to invest in producing digital content, they turned back to government for subsidies. The Taiwan Government finally decided to support the broadcasters to produce enough digital content to meet the basic requirements set by NCC.

V. No Digital Dividend

The digitalization of terrestrial television networks started in most of the advanced markets. This process frees up significant amount of ultra high frequency (UHF) band which can be potentially allotted for commercial mobile services. This referred to as the Digital Dividend spectrum varies between countries and regions.

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While the digital dividend was one of the primary reasons for the switchover, the case in Taiwan was quite different. The assigned frequency for the terrestrial television stations of 530-608 was deemed as not particularly valuable at the time. What’s more, the government has still not decided how to use the returned frequency. It has been found then, the switchover could not fulfill the goals either economically or socially.

Conclusions and Suggestions

When most technologically advanced countries around the world closed their analogue signals and embraced digital television, Taiwan followed suit and asked terrestrial stations to go digital before the opening of 2012 London Olympic Games.

The government assumed that viewers would appreciate the high quality viewing of the games, which would ultimately be good for the administration, industry, and the viewers.

Freedman (2008) has discussed the justifications for the switchover as digital choice, industrial benefits, the efficiency of digital, and digital inevitability. For the Taiwan Government, digital inevitability is likely the primary reason for the closing of analogue signals accompanied by perceiving the efficiency of digital.

Having followed the UK model, the government in Taiwan believed that the

deployment of terrestrial digital infrastructure, the supply of affordable reception equipment (set-top boxes) and marketing campaigns to stimulate consumer demand would ensure the digital switchover would be a success. The technical support had been put in place in time and had made government officials quite relieved. It could be concluded that, technically, the digital switchover was successful.

Regretfully, the released spectrum from the digital switchover has so far not been assigned well for future use. For government decision makers, the freed frequencies are not so valuable and no concrete plan has been studied and executed.

And for Taiwanese terrestrial stations the decline of viewership signaled the end of the good times. If no value chain could be established, the benefits of the switchover would evaporate. On the other hand, for the general audience in Taiwan, there has been little impact on their viewing behavior due to most of them watching DTT via cable.

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While the government thought DTV might feature prominently in the information society agenda, heralding prospects of an information-rich society with greater equality and opportunity for all, the study found that the terrestrial digital switchover did not demonstrate any promises of universal access to interactive services. For existing terrestrial television operators, to close the analogue signals and start producing digital content might be a new stage for them to look forward to. But so far, viewers in Taiwan have not showed appreciation toward the switchover (Peng, 2013).

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