25 years of Digital TV – Television.AU

It is 25 years today since Australian television first entered the digital age with the commencement of digital transmission in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.

Digital marked the most significant change in television viewing since the introduction of colour in 1975. With the advent of high-definition, widescreen television, there was a lot of information to take in about the technology and the options available. Though for many, the choice was simplified by the pure expense of digital equipment. The cheapest option to access digital TV was by connecting a standard definition set top box to an analogue TV — and that would still set you back around $700.

Viewers wanting to plug in a high definition set top box could be looking at closer to a $1000 price tag, and that box would only serve to downgrade the picture to be displayed on a standard analogue TV.

For the full digital experience, such as a widescreen TV with an integrated high-definition tuner, the price was around $8000 — although actual high-definition channels were not available at the time of launch and even when they did the networks were each only obliged to provide 20 hours a week of HD programming by 2003.

However, very few would have actually witnessed those first digital transmissions on 1 January 2001. With the government making last-minute changes to digital broadcasting standards as late as 2000, very few manufacturers had been able to commit to producing compatible receiving equipment much before the launch date. Even after 1 January, major retailers may have had a handful of set top boxes (STB) on display but would be lucky to have had any to actually sell. Broadcasters themselves even had to scramble for the few tuners that were available. Colin Knowles, head of ABC’s digital roll-out, told The Sunday Age late in December 2000 that he had only been able to secure five units nationwide which would be used for signal testing. The commercial networks were forced to underwrite the initial roll-out of digital tuners, just to get them in the stores, but even then only a few thousand were expected to be in the marketplace nationwide by the end of February.

Government legislation also did its best to make digital TV undesirable by limiting its functionality. Commercial channels were not permitted to start up secondary channels — presumably for the protection of the pay-TV sector. ABC and SBS could do so but there were strict restrictions on what those channels could actually offer. ABC’s first venture into digital channels were ABC Kids and the youth-focused channel, Fly TV, while SBS launched the World News Channel, featuring news bulletins from various countries.

Although technology was developed to incorporate interactive features such as home shopping, this was not to form part of the digital television platform.

Networks were permitted, however, to offer multi-view channels for sports coverage. This was an option piloted to some extent in the early days but was not widely adopted. Networks were also not exactly leaping to provide high definition or widescreen coverage of sporting events, even though this genre seemed a perfect fit for a high-definition, widescreen format.

YouTube: IdentsDotTV

It is probably no wonder that digital TV was not being taken up by the wider population, and the shutdown of analogue television, then intended for 2008, was fast approaching. The government had little option but to lift some of the content restrictions and to allow commercial networks to offer multiple channels to make digital TV more desirable. This allowed a revamp of ABC2 to a broader entertainment channel, and launch of ABC News 24. SBS replaced its World News Channel with SBS Two. The commercial networks then launched their first generation of multi-channels, including 7TWO, GO!, 7mate, Gem, One HD and Eleven.

The networks also formed an alliance, Freeview, to promote the benefits of digital television content and technology to encourage a higher uptake.

In markets of smaller populations, such as Tasmania, Darwin and Mildura, where there were only two commercial operators, the existing operators were given the option to operate a third digital-only channel as a joint venture. This encouraged a higher take up of digital television in these markets in the transition period. However, two decades on, commercial realities and shrinking revenues from an already low base are biting in these smaller markets. The third commercial channel in Mildura shut down completely in 2024. It is unclear what the future holds for the Tasmanian and Darwin channels — though they are market sizes larger than Mildura.

The proposed 2008 shutdown of analogue television was then postponed to be between 2010 and 2013, with markets across Australia shutting down analogue signals one by one.

YouTube: Channel 10

By the end of the first decade of digital, all networks had established high and standard definition secondary channels. After passionate lobbying by the community TV sector, it was eventually allowed a piece of digital spectrum. But victory was short-lived, and the community sector was then ordered to vacate their broadcast signals and pivot to an online model. This was years before streaming was to become commonplace. Even though successive governments would grant annual extensions, the ongoing uncertainty spelled the end of community TV stations in Sydney, Brisbane and Perth. Even now, the remaining community TV stations, C31 Melbourne and Channel 44 Adelaide, are still only being granted broadcast spectrum until any alternative use for the broadcast channels they occupy is identified.

In the second decade, networks have used MPEG4 technology to squeeze more channels into their available bandwidth and convert or resume primary and some secondary channels in high-definition. The Seven Network added 7flix, 7Bravo and Racing.com and in 2024 acquired TVSN. Nine added 9Life and 9Rush and shopping channel Extra, and Network Ten launched 10 Shake (now Nickelodeon) and added shopping channels you.tv and Gecko.

SBS has expanded its channel suite to include NITV, SBS Food, SBS World Movies and SBS WorldWatch. It also replaced SBS Two with SBS Viceland and converted it to high-definition. Both ABC and SBS have also added their radio networks to their digital television signals.

There have been casualties and genre shifts along the way. Network Ten ditched sport from One HD and turned it into a general entertainment channel, now 10 Drama. and Eleven is now 10 Comedy. 7Food, picking up the Food Network franchise after SBS let it go, was not to last long. Seven’s shopping channel, Openshop, also had a short lifespan, as did its shopping and niche content channel TV4ME. Nine had only a short run of yourMoney, a joint venture with Sky News Australia. ABC2 became ABC Comedy in 2017, then ABC TV Plus in 2021. It is now ABC Family and the children’s channel, formerly ABC3 and ABC Me, is now ABC Entertains.

Experimental transmission in 3D in 2012 were also to be a one-event wonder.

But, in the beginning, to assist viewers in making choices and being informed about digital television, Digital Broadcasting Australia, a conglomerate of broadcasters, manufacturers, retailers and technology providers, released a brochure to help educate viewers: