Stuck in the past
By : Anna Kocinska
Polish TV broadcasters, frustrated by the scarcity of frequencies available under the country's backbone analog network, have in recent years tried to expand their reach by joining the three digital platforms that transmit via satellite and cable.
But in their search for greater reach, both they and the government have overlooked a technology that in a few years could completely replace analog broadcasting in the West: digital terrestrial television (DTT).
"We did hear something about (DTT), but we don't know any details," said Piotr Nurowski, a board member at Polsat, Poland's largest private television station. "We are now occupied with our digital platform and fighting against time. This is a priority for us."
In the West, DTT and the prospect of a complete switch to digital from analog broadcasting is rapidly making converts. According to supporters, the new technology is light years away from today's highest-quality analog television because its compressed signal makes possible many more channels as well as interactive services such as home shopping and e-mail.
A DTT signal is transmitted via a standard antenna. With digital technology, pictures are compressed and bunched with sound, subtitles and data services into program groups. These groups can then be transmitted more efficiently than with the analog system. The DTT signal, however, can be transmitted alongside the existing analog PAL transmissions, the way it's already done in England and Sweden. While the first satellite digital platforms were created in France in the mid-1990s, digital terrestrial television is a more recent phenomenon.
ONdigital, a British company, was the first broadcaster in Britain to provide DTT to its customers in November 1998. The technology was created by its two shareholders, Carlton Communications and Granada Media Group, which had been granted a license to operate the previous year. ONdigital delivers multi-channel TV and interactive services to homes through an ordinary TV aerial. British DTT can successfully compete with multi-channel satellite and cable TV since it's based on six networks or multiplexes, containing up to five compressed programs each.
"DTT doesn't have any of the constraints of cable and satellite broadcasting," said Elzbieta Kindler-Jaworska, chairman of the Polskie Forum Digital Video Broadcasting (PF-DVB) and lecturer at Warsaw University's journalism faculty. The forum was established in 1997 to lay the groundwork for the development of DTT in Poland. "The existing (digital) platforms are purely commercial ventures and by their very nature have a limited access to viewers. Only terrestrial broadcasting can be universally accessible."
In January 2006, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is expected to order all analog TV transmitters off the air, thereby completely and irrevocably switching to digital TV transmissions. If that happens, Americans will have to purchase new digital TV sets or digital adapters for their old analog sets and all stations will have to simulcast analog and digital signals for several years. In Europe, a deadline to similar effect has tentatively been set for 2010.
No way out
While Krzysztof Lemiech, the main specialist for services and development at Telekomunikacja Polska (TPSA), described the FCC deadline as wishful thinking, he said that the switch from analog to digital is a must. "It's possible that terrestrial analog broadcasting will simply die out and its role will be taken by over satellite and cable television," he said. "Poland, unlike for instance Germany, where only 8% of the country is not covered by cable or satellite broadcasting, is not yet dominated by cable, and so should be interested in DTT."
But the future of DTT in Poland is uncertain. PF-DVB made its first appeal to get broadcasters and governmental bodies interested in the subject in 1998. "But there was no interest in DTT," Kindler-Jaworska said. "We also tried to approach the Sejm and the Senate, in vain."
According to TPSA's Lemiech, who also heads a technical working group at PF-DVB, broadcasters are not aware of the advantages of the new technology. "Two years ago we sent out a questionnaire about DTT to all Polish broadcasters. We only got feedback from Canal+," he said. "No wonder there is no lobbying for DTT and no pressure being exerted by the broadcasting community."
According to Andrzej Soltysik, press spokesman for TVN, one of Poland's terrestrial, supra-regional TV broadcasters, DTT will only be a factor in the future. "We have more prosaic things to deal with at the moment," he said. "Let's wait and see what happens with the internet and interactive television, then DTT might become an issue."
One of the prosaic tasks faced by Polish TV broadcasters is the need to build out their analog terrestrial reach. Due to the lack of available frequencies, broadcasters haven't reached the goals inscribed in their broadcasting licenses. But under digital terrestrial broadcasting, a spectrum of frequencies could be divided more efficiently than in an analog system, Lemiech said, thereby creating more frequencies. "I tried to explain that DTT is the future, because when it comes to frequencies, analog is too tight (with only one channel available per frequency)," Lemiech said. "But (the broadcasters) answered that they were above all struggling to survive."
Late start
According to Kindler-Jaworska, Polish commercial broadcasters are entering the new digital era far behind their Western counterparts. "In Poland, the first concessions were granted in 1993, whereas commercial broadcasters in the West started operating as far back as 10 years earlier," she said. "They had enough time to strengthen their market positions, while Polish broadcasters need to focus on the present day." That need is why some members of PF-DVB, which includes TV broadcasters, did not agree with the forum's official stand when it called on the National Radio and Television Council (KRRiTV) to stop granting new analog frequencies. "Giving away analog frequencies without having an allocation plan for granting digital channels was dangerous, but I could feel resistance (to the PF-DVB stance from members)," she said.
But TV broadcasters cannot be blamed for their lack of enthusiasm for the new technology. They feel uninformed. "Nobody told us, for instance, how many DTT concessions we can count on," Polsat's Nurowski said. "We expect the KRRiTV, which is practically our only source of information in this respect, to provide details."
While the FCC adopted a final channel allocation plan in 1998, a 1997 plan prepared by the Wroclaw-based National Institute of Communications (NIC) on frequencies to be made available for digital terrestrial broadcasters described only two multiplexes: DVB-1 and DVB-2. Unlike the FCC plan, the Polish plan did not guarantee broadcasters the same reach that they have under the analog system; according to NIC, only 60% of DVB-1 and 30% of DVB-2 would be completely compatible with existing analog stations. "In some cases, the reach of the planned stations will have to be limited," NIC said.
According to KRRiTV's March 2000 report, DTT multiplexes would result in a more effective distribution of the spectrum but there are not enough frequencies available to set up the multiplexes in the first place.
Also before the multiplexes come into existence, the allocation of frequencies has to be coordinated internationally to avoid interference. "The details of those two networks (multiplexes) are now being agreed upon, not without difficulty, with Poland's neighbors," said Andrzej Marszalek, a NIC engineer and analyst. "Waves know no borders, so we need to (hold discussions) with overseas and terrestrial neighbors." The former refers to Scandinavian countries, and the latter to countries such as Hungary, the Czech Republic, Russia, Germany, and Ukraine.
According to Lemiech, no country in Europe will have as many multiplexes as the U.K., which has six, and Spain, which has even more, because of their isolated geographical location. "Germany, which is also short of free frequencies, is questioning the sense of even introducing DTT, because without enough 4-channel multiplexes, the program offering would be too poor," Kindler-Jaworska said.
Military maneuvers
In Poland, the KRRiTV and the communications minister have to take into account yet another factor when allocating frequencies: the army. In the original 1993 concession plans, the KRRiTV assumed that the Defense Ministry, which uses channels 43-47, 54 and 55, will renounce some of them and thus improve the situation of broadcasters in Poland. But the Defense Ministry cannot renounce those frequencies without modernizing its obsolete navigation equipment. The problem is money.
"There was a concept that broadcasters should finance the army's new radio and navigation system we're talking enormous amounts of money," Polsat's Nurowski said.
While the Defense Ministry still holds the promised channels, NIC took them into account when planning DVB-1 and DVB-2 allocations.
According to Kindler-Jaworska, the only way to reconcile the technical quandaries and conflicting requirements of the army and the TV broadcasters is for the government to precisely plan for the implementation of DTT in Poland.
"Take the work done by the Wroclaw institute (NIC). It should have been done within the framework of a wider plan, but so far there has been no coordination of activities," she said. "The government should establish a working group that, for instance, estimates how much the modernization of army navigation equipment would cost. The government should balance the losses and profits."
Under the FCC's timetable, the old analog channels will go off the air and be given back to the government for possible auctioning in 2006. "It's one of the profits the state can count on," Kindler-Jaworska said. "Many countries have already assessed the value of analog frequencies that can be granted again for other kinds of services."
According to Kindler-Jaworska, the introduction of DTT together with the development of the internet can also help create an information society in Poland. "The government is now evaluating the draft of the amended media law regarding digital television, but I think that other things should be done first," she said. "Before regulating something, you need to establish your priorities and goals. The government should decide what it will be responsible for and what will be left to the market."
Lemiech said the state won't need to subsidize the switch from analog to digital broadcasting if it does its best to guarantee an abundance of channels. "I call it a marketing approach. If the DTT programming offer is attractive enough and the number of new channels is comparable to the number of satellite channels, people will pay for new TV sets and the necessary equipment themselves," he said. At the same time, broadcasters in Poland have already switched to digital technology in the form of digital cameras, editing tables and transmitters. "It is viewers and telecom operators that will have to pay for the change," he said. "I think TPSA wouldn't hesitate to invest in new transmitters. It's our future, we have to enrich what we offer."
