The issue of pay television has generated a plethora of reports and
submissions from politicians, bureaucrats and industrialists for a decade.
That the issue is not yet resolved is the result of many factors, all of which
serve to highlight the structural complexities of the Australian electronic
media system. At the political level, social policy is in a state of transition
and broadcasting policy has reflected this. The Australian Broadcasting
Corporation (ABC) and the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) have been
forced to reappraise their roles as public broadcasters. The commercial
networks have seen their reserves and their profitability deteriorate
drastically in an environment of poor management, fluctuating government
policy and a depressed national economy. The Australian Broadcasting
Tribunal (ABT), the federal regulator of commercial broadcasting, is
struggling to adapt to these new circumstances, and is confronted by new
challenges to its powers and responsibilities.
Ideally, a discussion on the introduction of pay television would be conducted
within the context of a comprehensive and established federal broadcasting
policy. Basic to this thesis is the perception that no such policy exists. It is
left to the analyst to speculate as to the intentions evident in Government
initiatives, suggest the potential impact of pay television in that light, and
offer constructive criticism accordingly.
This thesis recognises that pay television seems inevitable as both major
political parties are committed, in principle at least, to its introduction. This
thesis sets itself the following objectives: to identify the salient components
that serve to define pay television; to develop and employ a methodology to
extract lessons from the experiences of others with pay television, whilst
remaining sensitive to historical and structural context; to apply those
lessons to the Australia condition; and to make recommendations on the
introduction of pay television, based on both the definitional and comparative
work of this thesis, within the context of contemporary Government
deliberations, as evident in the Report from the House of Representatives
Standing Committee on Transport, Communications and Infrastructure of
November 1989.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/219313 |
| Date | January 1991 |
| Creators | Schaap, Rob, n/a |
| Publisher | University of Canberra. Communication |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | ), Copyright Rob Schaap |
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