To my mind's way of thinking, digital TV is just another attempt to extract more money from Australia's over enthusiastic "gadget" crowd. I'm sure someone sits around all day long with nothing else to do except think up more ways to lead us down the path of unsustainable consumerism and digital TV is one of the latest ideas... "Hey! Lets force digital television on those Aussie consumer robots. They'll fall for it hook, line and sinker!" Well, not this little bird. I've been looking for a gentle way out of my habit of watching too many CSI's, Law & Order, Bones and Crossing Jordan. Now I have the answer. When they turn off anologue TV in 2010, that's the end of my addiction because I utterly refuse to buy a digital TV set on principle. Unfortunately, I'll also have to go without the quality programs offered on the ABC, still, I won't have to watch nightly news reports of nuclear bomb threats (or worse), wars, climate change and petrol prices at $3.00 a litre and above as major oil companies go bust.

We have been playing around with digital TV since it's inception.

All those extra channels just lying idle. Worse - all that bandwidth (real estate) tied up with the incumbent's ploy of high definition broadcasts. What a sham, really. Thankyou for nothing, Senator Awful. Coonan - wake up! - ah forget it.

On a practical note, our local digital repeater broadcasts all of this extra information at a fraction of the power needed for the transmission of the broadband analogue channels. We get near perfect reception with a tiny, simple antenna.

Like digital cellphones, it either works very well, or not at all. There is no equivalent of a distant snowy picture in digital-land. But if all that transmission power were devoted to digital, it would be as ubiquitous as the familiar analogue service - maybe more so.

Digital TV could be the antidote to the filtration exercised by our partisan news services.

There lies the political sticking point.

Footnote: Find a mate with digital TV and big, big speakers. Watch Dr Who, turn up the knob, and break out the popcorn. Wheeeeeee!

Why do we need a Department of Communications? The radio spectrum should ba available at no cost to ALL not just for a favoured few.In the course of doing away with a useless department we eliminate a "sheltered workshop".

This is the sort of "sheltered workshop I am thinking of.

"Jock Given teaches Media Law in the Department of Media and Communications and was the 2004 CH Currey Memorial Fellow at the State Library of NSW. From 1995-2000 he was Director of the Communications Law Centre (UNSW and Victoria University of Technology) and from 1989-94, Policy Advisor at the Australian Film Commission. Before that, he worked in the Australian government departments of finance and communications."

Current policy on digital TV is pretty woeful. In part the existing TV players have been very sucessful in lobbying for the status quo where Australian consumers have extremely limited choice. Note for example that later this month Channel 9 are bringing in their heavyweight lawyers to crush the fledgling electronic program guide ICETV.

I agree that it seems bizzare that in this case the Government seems so committed to micro managing the technology rather than letting the free market in. Surely the current analogue channels would be affected by an opening up but I can't see there is much worth protecting at the present time.

The other key element in maintaining the status quo seems to be the lack of consumer awareness and demand. As taxpayers we have a very strong interest in seeing a changeover to digital since millions of dollars could be realised by the selling off of the analogue spectrum.

I don't get it either. Firstly digital TV IS Free-to-air TV. Yes you need a digital tuner, just like you need an analog tuner to watch "normal" TV or a radio to listen to the radio.

Cable TV imho is double dipping not only do you pay for the cable access every month you also are subjected to mindless advertising.

We have a strong anti-siphoning laws that ensures that major sporting events have a good chance of making it to free to air. However the broadcasting laws prohibit events that fall under anti siphoning to be broadcast on the secondary channels. A digital tuner can be had for around $120, cheaper models are less than $100. If the football or ashes were on Ch9B or an other secondary channel we would have a digital tuner in 50% of the households within a month.

Ironically the demise of Fox footy next year might lead to a change in antisiphoning rules. 7 and 10 are committed by contract to broadcast every AFL match next year. In previous years all matches were shown on the footy channel and the free to airs would only show a couple of games in each city. As any football tragic or widow will tell you, matches take a long time. As any program manager will tell you they create havoc with normal scheduling. However showing the football commitments on a secondary channel would not interupt normal programming. Ch7 is for opening up the side channels the other majors are against it. Perhaps we'll have some changes next year but I wouldn't hold my breath.

From the networks perspective multichanneling chips into their revenue base. Ads are sold on the basis of 1000's of viewers. Multichanneling will bring in more channels not more viewers, so they don't stand to get more money on the contrary they'd have to buy more content to put on the extra channels.