The progress of popular happiness. First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev promised a coordinated concept for the development of digital television in Russia already in May. This means that very soon, with the beginning of the large -scale implementation of digital broadcasting, all participants in the process will have big problems, and the viewer - a potential consumer of the next product of progress - will certainly receive a new large headache.
Alexander Sharikov Professor of the State University - Higher School of Economics
- Unnecessary - delete! -
And what does the “numbers” acquire or lose power with the introduction? Why last year “suddenly” and “urgently” under the leadership of the First Deputy Prime Minister Medvedev created a special government commission for the development of television and radio broadcasting, which is primarily engaged in digital broadcasting?
The introduction of digital broadcasting is accompanied by a sharp expansion of the number of television channels, which, of course, leads to the redistribution of audience 1 . Obviously, the share of the audience of large channels will fall to values below 10%. In 1999, during the campaign in the State Duma election, many were perplexed: why did the RTR channel change the time of the Vesti program from 20.00 to 21.00. Indeed, at 21.00 the “Time” program traditionally comes out, and to put two news programs is a VSTOK means reducing the “Vesti” indicators. For what? The answer is in the logic of the old Soviet joke, when the CPSU congress was broadcast on all channels, and the poor viewer, not wanting to listen to endless speeches, switched the TV from the channel to the channel. On Channel One is a congress, on the second - a congress and at the third - also a congress. I switched to the fourth, and there Andropov. He looks and threatens with his finger: "I am overreaking!" And in regions where only two television channels were accepted, the production of two news programs gave the maximum political technological effect. People are so arranged that for the most part they cannot help but watch TV at 21.00, no matter what they show there. Not the first channel, so the second. And on both in the fall of 1999-the movement "Unity" from which the current party "United Russia" was born.
With the development of digital broadcasting, such a number will no longer pass. Since even at least ten channels will be accepted at the most remote point. And the government risks losing its total influence on the audience. This is what the authorities are afraid of.
Therefore, the task is to organize a new barrier of entering the market in order to release the necessary and unnecessary to the wide audience - not to release. Hence the endless discussions about the "social package" available to every Russian.
- Media inflation -
Despite the interest in digital broadcasting and almost a year of hard discussions within the framework of the special government commission, the federal target program has not yet been adopted. They promise by the end of spring. It is already obvious: at the start of a large -scale implementation of digital TV problems will appear even more.
The authorities will not release this process from control. For them, the main problem is the threat to lose the communicative management levers of society due to a sharp increase in the number of uncontrolled channels. But there are also threats of a macroeconomic nature. For example, a forced process of transition to a “digital” will lead to additional inflation and can violate a fragile financial balance achieved in recent years. As the project develops, a more secured part of the population will be transferred from the “figure” to the “figure”, which means that it will be more difficult to maintain analogue broadcasting with analogue broadcasting. Only the state will be able to carry this burden, supposedly in order to "do not violate the right of poor citizens to receive information."
There were conflicts between groups of television market entities. First of all, between telecommunications operators who transition to the “figure”, and traditional operators of paid television-cable, satellite and Internet TV. The latter are afraid of a significant loss of subscribers.
Among the "digitalizers" themselves, conflicts also unfold. Both state RTRS 2 and commercial operators want to implement the implementation program. Two stress fields arise: RTRS against private operators and the competition of private operators among themselves.
TV showers are preoccupied with two fundamental problems: how to get into a multiplex of free access (“social package”) and what to do with content, since the television community today is not able to produce so many products.
But the advertisers have not yet made high -profile statements. They are more preoccupied with a decrease in the norm of advertising time on traditional channels, which should enter into force in 2008. But more serious problems are waiting for them. For example, the threat of reducing the share of advertising and commercial television in the general television landscape, which will lead to a sharp decrease in the volume of the audience and a significant complication of the processes of media, media planning, media analysis and, as a result, media inflation.
- multi -channel happiness -
Back in the 19th century, the French thinker Auguste Comte said that progress is not equivalent to the boundless growth of happiness and human perfection. I like not like it, but nowhere to go. In addition to the possibility of ensuring high quality transmission and high noise resistance of a television signal, digital television has another wonderful property - digital compression, the possibility of saving information channels. In analogue broadcasting, as the signalmen say, a wide strip for one broadcast television channel, in the “figure” in the same lane, you can lay several to four, five, or even more channels. With the advent of digital TV, we will fundamentally be able to accept not up to 15–16 television channels, as the analog format allows, but up to 70, according to the signalmen, and in a more remote perspective - up to 150.
Today, about 40 million Russians take only two or three channels. With the advent of the “numbers” at the same frequencies, you can broadcast up to 18 channels - as in large cities. The multi -channel supercanal dubbed the multiplex. In the multiplex, you can also lay feedback channels that are not provided in the analog format, as well as many other services - for example, channels for transmitting large volumes of data, the ability to connect alarm, etc. And this means that digital television becomes something akin to the Internet, where work usually goes in interactive mode.
With the introduction of digital television, the consumer receives a picture of good quality, much more television channels, the possibility of advanced feedback and many additional information services. But do this process really have no minuses? Eat. At least one. And this minus is the price that must be paid for the transition from an “analogue” to the “number”.
- How much does the "figure" cost -
Probably no one will refuse the best if it comes itself for free. But if from tomorrow the entire television day becomes digital, will Russians be accepted? The answer is obvious: they will not be able to, since the transition to digital TV showing involves the replacement of a huge fleet of television receivers in the families of Russians, and, according to various estimates, there are up to 70 million.
There are two options for solving this problem. First. Slarly buy digital TVs. For an average Russian, prices are biting. I give a simple analysis: I type the keywords “Digital TVs” in the Internet player and click on the “Market” button. The listed list gives the interval from 96,340 to 462,852 rubles - these are now the price boundaries of digital television receivers. Not prices - telephone numbers! Now let's look at the statistical reports. According to Rosstat, the average salary in the country is about 11.5 thousand rubles. But not everyone works! There are also pensioners with people with disabilities, there are also small children, there are simply unemployed. It is only difficult to say that prices will decrease over time, but how soon this will happen.
The second method is to install a special converter called SET-TOPBOX, or abbreviated STB, which adapts a translated digital signal to a conventional analog TV. This is already cheaper-somewhere around 2-3 thousand rubles. But even many will not be able to lay out such money, especially in rural areas.
Thus, the costs of consumers when switching to digital television at current prices throughout the country will amount, according to $ 6-7 billion. If the cost of STB to $ 30, as the manufacturers predict, will require $ 2.1–2.2 billion. Obviously, a special state program for the production of digital telephones and STB will not cost here, otherwise the process is stretched. For many decades. After all, this fact is known: so far in the outback, some use a black and white TV, although color TV appeared in our country back in the 1960s. The mentioned amounts must be added for connection, and this in the country as a whole can cost another $ 1 billion.
However, the financial assessments of this project by different analysts diverge at times! So, in the middle of last year, referring to Dmitry Medvedev, they talked about $ 2 billion, apparently referring to the amount that the state was ready to allocate. In early March, completely different expert estimates appeared: the transition of Russian television to digital broadcasting will cost $ 13.9 billion, of which about a quarter should invest the state. A quarter here is about $ 3.5 billion. The rates are growing, gentlemen.
- Who will pay? -
The Republic of Mordovia launched a large -scale project to introduce digital broadcasting in 2005. In this “pilot” there is one important nuance that should be paid to. In fact, citizens of the republic pay only the technical side - the delivery of the signal in the digital format and the maintenance of this process. But they do not pay for the contents of multiplexes, that is, using the now -fashionable word, for content. And this moment becomes a stumbling block in the implementation of the project. Let's lose a couple of scenarios for the development of this situation.
The script is the first. Let the state ensure the work of their state channels, for the reception of which citizens do not pay directly, since they pay this public good through tax fees. It is expected that state channels of the federal and regional levels broadcast within the subject of the Russian Federation will occupy two multiplexes. Let the rest of the multiplexes pay the subscribers themselves. This makes a subscription to digital broadcasting comparable to a cable TV subscription. As shown by polls conducted among cable TV subscribers in Russian cities in 2005-2006, any additional fee reduces the appeal to many familiar channels. So, according to a survey conducted by the Media Committee in the summer of 2006, completely different channels, such as Discovery, Animal Planet, Eurosport, and in some places Belarus-TV, go to higher positions. At the same time, channels such as REN-TV, MTV, DTV-Viasat, TV-3 and a number of others have much lower auditorium indicators in the cable environment compared to the etheric one.
This means a threat to those television channels that in their business strategies rely exclusively on advertising. The viewer argues something like this: “Why will I pay money for receiving a channel stuffed with advertising? I’ll sign it better on those channels where it is not or its number is small. ” The consequence of this mood is a sharp decrease in the indicators of the audience of the group and commercial channels, which entails the loss of a significant part of advertising income.
In this regard, the story that happened in the UK is instructive, a country that gradually switches to digital broadcasting since the late 1990s. In 2003, British Sky BroadCasting (BSKYB) 3 , ahead of both a public television and radio corporation BBC, who lives mainly on income from a monthly fee, and social and commercial ITV, Channel-5 and all the rest, was released there. At the same time, in the BSKYB revenue structure, the share of advertising amounted to only about 9% with the tendency to reduce this percentage. It turns out that the bet on a monthly fee, the selection of content from a sparing viewer with a policy of advertising placement gives a much greater economic effect. There are so striking examples in Russia so far. However, this trend can be seen by comparing the growth rate of markets. According to some estimates, in 2007, the paid television market in our country will grow by at least 50% and its volume will be at least $ 700 million. At the same time, the growth of the television advertising market in Russia in 2007 will be 30 - 35% (Zenithoptimedia data). So, this scenario shows a tendency to “escape from advertising” and access to a more profitable position of those channels, the strategy of which is aimed at receiving income from a monthly fee.
The scenario is the second. Let, as in the first case, the state pays for two or three multiplexes containing state channels. Let the subscriber pay part of the multiplexes, and the rest of the costs will take on commercial television channels, exempting viewers from the fee. This will probably lead to an increase in advertising prices, because they want or not, commercial channels will have to keep the volume and, most importantly, the frequency of advertising on the lower permissible border so as not to miss the viewer who has the opportunity to go to paid channels that are not overloaded with advertising. In any case, the redistribution of funds between the subscription fee and advertising revenues in favor of the monthly fee will be redistributed. This does not mean at all that the volume of advertising will decrease. No, just an increase in income from subscription fees and interactive services will grow ahead of the pace.
The Government of the Republic of Mordovia proposed unusual measures to stimulate the acquisition of STB and digital TV services in rural areas. This is the development of a scheme for the issuance of loans to the rural population for a period of six months, and to disabled people and participants in the war, up to one year. It was also proposed to conduct the calculation for prefixes with beekeeping products and meat and dairy products. Later, they say, they expanded this list at the expense of other agricultural products (potatoes, vegetables, etc.). And still, people are pressed, does not want to change the meat to the STB and is in no hurry to the information society.
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Experiments in public
In Russia, several regions are already underway experiments on the introduction of digital broadcasting. These are certain areas of Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Chelyabinsk, and on a regional scale-the Republic of Mordovia and the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug. Many regions also express their readiness to act as experimental sites for this innovation. Mordovia is not the richest region of the country. But there is also a lot of interesting things: for example, as an operator of a connection that introduces the “figure”, not a state, but a private company - OJSC Volgatelecom, more precisely, its Mordovian branch. The company undertook to provide the population of the republic with digital television and radio broadcasting in the DVB-T standard. A four -sided agreement was concluded between the Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Culture and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation, the Government of the Republic of Mordovia and the National Association of Television and Distributors. The project suggested “building a multifunctional distribution multimedia network, creating a technological base for the provision of interactive services” for three years. In 2005, 68 million rubles were invested in the development (construction) of the network in the form of an interest -free loan provided by the Government of the Republic of Mordovia. The total investment for three years should amount to about 140 million rubles. According to the plan by the beginning of 2008, 90% of the population of the republic should have a potential to use digital broadcasting services (in the sense that 90% of the residents of the republic will already be organized in places of residence). In Mordovia, until recently, about 15% of the population did not see anything but Channel One. The project provides the possibility of receiving 10 technical channels at once, on which 12 television companies are located. These are the channels “First”, “Russia” (on which the news issues of the GTRK “Mordovia”), NTV, “Culture”, “Sport”, STS, TTC, REN-TV together with the TC “Channel”, MTV and TV-3 are also released. In addition, the package includes four technical radio channels, which are broadcast by five state stations: Radio of Russia with news releases of the GTRK Mordovia, Mayak, Yunost and Radio Culture. According to the calculations of designers, within six years, the project should reach a break -in point. And here the difficulties begin. Profit can be obtained and only when the population begins to fork out. And it is not in a hurry yet. According to the official statement of Volgatelecom OJSC, by March 2007, the multimedia network has already covered almost 90% of the population of Mordovia - such an opportunity has already been ensured. It turns out that the design capacity has already been actually achieved. However, the number of subscribers of this network is so far only 32 thousand (this is the number of families), or about 90 thousand people, that is, about 10% of the residents of the republic. If then the business goes at the same pace, then you can talk about profit about 12-15 years, or even more. What is holding the population from the new benefit of civilization? Again prices. По замыслу проектировщиков, тариф в 100 рублей в месяц не должен отпугивать потребителей. Плюс 200 рублей за установку STB — тоже не злая цена. Плюс смарт-карта — 300 рублей. И это еще по карману. Плюс стоимость самой STB — 2080 рублей. Вот здесь-то и начинаются проблемы. Они усугубляются тем, что нередко, как выяснилось, связисты продают STB и дороже — до 3000 рублей. Прежде чем запустить проект, провели маркетинговое исследование. Выявили готовность населения платить установочную плату до 500 рублей и абонентскую — до 100 рублей. Но спросили ли про STB? Информации по этому вопросу нет. А между прочим, выложить сразу 500 рублей или 3500 — это семикратная разница, неизбежно создающая финансовый риск для успешности проекта.
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1 Если в начале 1990-х годов Первый канал собирал до 50% всех смотревших телевизор, то в последние два-три года этот показатель уменьшился до 20 —25%. 2 Российская телерадиосеть, которой сейчас принадлежит более 90% всех передающих мощностей. 3 По данным Европейской аудиовизуальной обсерватории, годовой доход BSkyB в 2002 году составил 3,89 млрд евро.
The progress of popular happiness • New Times • RIMA — Russian Independent Media Archive
