Terrestrial Digital TV Commences in Taiwan
September 2004
Taiwan commenced digital broadcasting in five stations on 1 July. Taiwanese terrestrial stations lost their advertising market to cable television networks whose distribution share had reached 85 %. Of those five stations, share of four commercial terrestrial stations, excluding a public broadcast station, in TV advertisement plummeted from 90 % in 1993 to current 28 %. For a long time, three networks, Taiwan Television Enterprise (TTV), China Television Company (CTV), and Chinese Television System (CTS) dominated Taiwan's terrestrial television service. In the age of one-party rule by Kuomintang, although their program contents were under control of the government, the big three did enjoy privilege, benefiting from monopolistic status that had been blocking new entries. Naturally, they were easily outpaced by emerging cable networks.
Therefore, the launch of digital terrestrial broadcasting is regarded as the terrestrial stations' counterattack against cable networks. To start with, the Taiwanese terrestrial stations followed European counterparts to selected multichannel system, and the big three started digital broadcasts with three channels, while the public broadcaster had to start with two channels due to budgetary considerations. Aiming to provide services that cable TVs cannot offer, they focus on broadcasts for mobile object such as cars and started a transportation channel. As the four commercial stations (not the public broadcaster) has broadcasting rights of Athens Olympics, recently they have been trying to increase recipients by taking advantage of the Games. Viewers need a television set with a built in tuner or an external tuner called Set Top Box (STB) to receive digital broadcasts. Each station is focusing on distributing less expensive STBs. The Government Information Office that supervises Taiwanese media hopes to terminate analogue broadcasting by 2006, or by 2008 at the latest. Whether they can achieve the 85 % diffusion rate of digital terrestrial broadcasting, which is the benchmark of the termination of analogue broadcasts, depends on how successfully they can provide programs with quality on digital channels.