Ban May Stifle Abc Revenue Plan
Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday September 28, 1989
CANBERRA: The Government's ban on pay television could stifle an innovative ABC plan to sell off its downtime and reap millions in revenue.
The managing director of the ABC, Mr David Hill, announced yesterday that the corporation would sell its television capacity from midnight to dawn each day except Fridays and Saturdays to specialist groups. They would then transmit scrambled signals into homes which people who paid could pick up with an "encoder" and video for later viewing.
ABC marketers are already talking to interested education groups, book and video clubs, specialist industry groups including drug companies, and companies wanting to screen first-release movies and sports programs.
Mr Hill, who does not concede that the plans are certain to fall within the pay television ban, said he would seek the necessary administrative and legislative changes to allow the scheme to proceed.
ABC sources said Communications Department officials had already supported the plan in principle.
But a spokesman for the Minister for Communications, Mr Willis, said the ABC had given Mr Willis no notice of the plan, which would be likely to fail because of the Government's ban on pay television until September 1990.
The ban prohibits non free-to-air television from being transmitted into private homes, although Mr Willis has promised to announce a timetable for its introduction or otherwise this year.
Mr Hill said the scheme was "worth millions to the ABC", and that he envisaged few problems in getting government approval because the Government"was eager for us to find independent ways of earning income".
He said he hoped any necessary changes to the law would be passed by the year's end.
© 1989 Sydney Morning Herald