As the clock ticks slowly towards 2008, we're hearing a lot of news and research about how adoption of Digital TV in Australia is particularly slow. Since 2001, only 13 percent of Australian households have adopted Digital TV [ACMA, 2 Nov 2005].
There's a very simple explaination for this: no manufacturer support. No manufacturer support means it's simply too hard for the average consumer to adopt. And for the technically-aware consumer (e.g., myself), there's very little reason to adopt, and added hassle if we *did* adopt.
Why? Because a set-top box is an inelegant, sub-optimal solution. You now need two remotes. Your TV remote is reduced to turning the unit on and changing the volume, and you now have a new remote to change channels.
From experience, a lot of consumers can't even figure out how to change to the 'Video' channel, let alone remember that they need to use another remote to change channels.
So, why don't manufacturers simply build the tuner into the TV? They have no incentive to. 45% of "non-adopters" don't know if digital services are available in their area. 17% have never even heard of Digital TV.
That means 62% of non-adopters are going to purchase a TV based pretty much solely upon the pricetag. Why would a manufacturer hike the price of their TV by around $500 to add a feature that consumers haven't heard of (and therefore, probably don't care about)?
I did a little research to back up my claim that manufacturers don't care. Today, I received a Retravision catalogue with my newspaper. It had 23 televisions listed. I'm not a statistician or anything, but that feels like a fairly decent sample space. All of these units would be at consumer level (i.e., the kind of TV mum and dads buy -- not the kind tech-heads go looking for).
http://www.realmtech.net/documents/DigitalTuners.pdf
Of all the TVs listed ONLY ONE had a Digital tuner.
Further adding to my horror, Panasonic have a "106cm HD Plasma" -- with an ANALOGUE tuner. This seems to me a blatant attempt to deceive already confused consumers.
Comments
Well just be thankful that they've improved slightly. Back in the ol' days when I was selling plasma's (and LCD's) they didn't even come *with* a tuner of any kind.
In most cases people would just opt to use their vcr instead of forking out more money for a set top box which was ugly, clunky and was unreliable (or didn't work at all in the tuggeranong valley)
The reason we kept getting from the suppliers was that the australian market just isn't worth the push - overall australian's don't like to change technology, we're so much slower than the europeans in adopting change cause people are happy to use what the've got until it doesn't work. Overall there isn't a stigma associated with old technology that other cultures have.
Plus with the exception of the ACT, most australian cities have a smaller disposable income than most of the (northen) european countries. And with rising petrol prices (a rant for another time) that's not going to change any time soon
Of the 23 TVs in the Retravision catalogue, 19 were "flat panel" (LCD or Plasma). Five of them came with no tuner. Unsurprisingly (to me, anyway), they appeared to be the higher-end models (e.g. 106cm, or Sony). Clearly, someone who is willing to fork out for the higher-end models knows what they're talking about, and doesn't want to get stuck with an Analogue tuner they'll never use.
I agree that Australians don't like a change in technology -- but sometimes it's needed to make progress. An excellent example is with Mobile Phones.
In Australia, the mobile phone network was scheduled to be switched off in 2000. It actually *was* switched off in 2000? How did we do it? Quite simple: Don't allow the sale of analogue handsets.
The government imposed the 2000 deadline, as well as mandating that all handsets sold must be digital.
It would be quite simple to do a similar thing with televisions (albeit over a longer timeperiod). You disallow retailers to sell analogue tuners past 31 December 2006. Sure, there'll be an initial jump in the price of TVs (because they all have to have digital tuners now), but a niche is formed -- the low-cost digital television niche. I can guarantee that competition will fill this niche within 12 months after the deadline.