Turning Off the Television: Broadcasting™s Uncertain Future

Jock Given ,
0868405000, UNSW Press, March 2003, 328pp, PB , 235x155mm
Price: $44.95

Governments are planning a remarkable step in the next decade or so. They are proposing to turn off television services. Not all TV services – just the transmission by the major TV networks of “analogue” TV. By these dates, it is hoped that audiences will have acquired the equipment needed to receive “digital” TV.

But there are two problems. First, people have to want their TV to be transformed and be prepared to pay the cost of the new equipment. Second, a better use has to be found for the vacated spectrum which justifies the transition. The neatness of the plan disguises the extraordinarily bold assumption which underpins it: within a few years, a better use will have been found for the public resource used to deliver perhaps the most important thing distinguishing the world since World War 2 from the one before it – television.

Turning off the Television is about tomorrow’s broadcasting.From the dot-com crash to Marconi and back, from the digital age forward into an uncertain future, Jock Given explores the constant shifts in the technologies, business models and social uses of TV and radio. He also explains the enduring aspects of broadcast media which have attracted so much government policy attention, and what might happen to them in the future. Sceptical about the hype, optimistic about the possibilities, honest about the scale of the policy challenges, Turning off the Television is essential reading for anyone interested in the future of media.