To: AFTRS
Presented 13-5-1993 2:48 pm

Subject: class exercise of putting together a segment for radio broadcast

Status: presented text only, as unable to secure access to equipment/production person - refused offered certificate of successful completion of course

Note: FX designates special effects insertion


The $1,000,000/day pay TV pay-off


[FX: satellite launchdown sequence]

[short pause]

[FX: explosion]

[FX: just a hint of 'space'-type music as underlay to the narration]

The loss of a new satellite by Australia's second carrier OPTUS --
shortly after its launch in China last year -- did NOT in any way delay
the launch of new communications services to the Australian public.

Instead, it was the Governments bizarre bungling as it lurched forward
once again on the 13-year-old path toward a policy on pay-television
that did the REAL damage.

Luckily, the damage was not TOTAL: while OPTUS lost a few hundred
million that it may STILL get back from HUGHES, the Chinese, or
insurance, there has been a very neat financial fallout from the tender
foul-up that saw two unknown companies bid up to three times as much as
the media moguls, without putting up a deposit.

Let me quote to you the words of a high-powered consultant:
[use different voice/enunciation]

"Each day of delay is worth a million dollars to KERRY PACKER, RUPERT
MURDOCH and TELECOM."

The consultant, who prides himself on the fact that his firm advises
the high and mighty in the land, promised further details and
revelations to back up his story of an alleged deal between Mr XXX
and a consortium made up of the XXX NETWORK, XXX LIMITED, and
carrier XXX.

Allegedly hammered out late last year, the purported agreement caused
the group to put in a quote SHAM BID unquote for the Pay-TV licenses
that was promptly bested by the unknowns.

The deal -- cleared first with the all-important union lobby -- would
then allow the carrier-led group to go ahead with ambitious plans to
install the necessary IN-GROUND network to bring you: video telephony,
home shopping, multi-media services of m any kinds, including, not
surprisingly, Pay-TV -- all coming to a screen near you through the ONE
plug in the wall.

Unfortunately for this investigation, the consultant proved singularly
elusive during the recent three-day communications industry conference
in Sydney, and the promised formal interview was, let us say, 'lost in
space'.

But the conspiracy theory is bolstered somewhat by a top executive of
the country's -- dare I say it? -- THIRD carrier, XXX from
XXX Telecommunications.

[ take in XXX re 'vested interest']

Perhaps I should add that XXX's quasi-carrier lost out rather badly when Communications Minister BOB COLLINS (or BUMBLEBUM, as JOHN LAWS prefers to call him) summarily shot down roof-to-roof microwave as a medium for delivering Pay-TV.

And considering that Prime Minister KEATING has repeatedly and publicly
butted into Pay-TV policy-making in the past -- usually short-
circuiting the communications minister of the day -- you will perhaps
find his CURRENT contribution to the debate on the bungle as intriguing
as did this reporter.

Here we have Mr KEATING:

[a pronounced stretch of silence]

And again, while the clock is ticking on the hopeless bids, more of the
same:

[more pronounced silence]

Thank you, Prime Minister, the unwashed public does INDEED not care if
this country HAS a policy on the matter or NOT, or whether XXX and
XXX or even good old XXX, sorry, XXX, make a bit on the side
from the present kerfuffle ...

Well, SHOULD we care? After all, it's only about MORE TV?

My poor little possums, you should follow this saga with riveted
interest, because its outcome will to a large degree decide whether
this country CAN quickly advance to the status of a 'clever country’
that we hear mentioned so often, or not.

OF COURSE IT’S NOT 'only about Pay-TV'! It's about fast, interactive
access to a world out there of information services, databases of all
descriptions, multi-media services that bundle sound and picture,
affordable video-telephony and video-conferencing -- all the
materials, some as yet unwoven, that make up the fabric of our
increasingly complex, increasing global "Information Society".

The Government's decision to DECREE the course of the evolution of our
information society is based on its long-standing mateship with the
media moguls, with the added twist that it is now also very much
obliged to OPTUS for having taken off its hands the financial 'black
hole' that was Aussat.

For to mandate the use of satellite transmission for Pay-TV takes the
bread out of an ever-hungry TELECOM's mouth -- and remember, they DON'T
have a share in our satellites anymore -- and boy, have they been
straining at the leash to get to extend all that beautiful super-
powerful fibre-optic cable from the curb to your homes and offices! All
they need is a bit of Pay-TV incentive.

And Mr KEATING's personal 'spin' that says we can go ahead only with an
all-digital transmission from the satellite adds a welcome FURTHER
delay to the "outbreak" of Pay-TV that has been feared all these years
by the commercial 'free-to-air' channels that charge ADVERTISERS, not
YOU, for the programs you watch.

So the longer it takes for satellite Pay-TV to get up into commercial
orbit, the more time it buys for XXX and its partners to put in the
necessary infrastructure for their preferred, terrestrial, system.

Of course, much of the new-fangled stuff mentioned earlier CAN be
thrown at you from high up in the sky - it doesn't have to snake into
your home by cable!

OPTUS director of business development WAYNE NOWLAND is one dyed-in-
the-wool satellite fan who believes Pay-TV CAN get there first -
IF there are NO FURTHER delays:

[quote here from nowland)

But once YOU put up your first satellite reception dish and install
your unscrambler of Pay-TV programs you are pretty much locked into
THAT technology. You may have to keep adding gadgets for everything NEW
that comes along, in the absence of suitable standards.

Here’s what 'communications journalist of the year' STEWART FIST has to
say:

[take in standards stuff from fist]

[now a TOTAL change of mood, the space music has a last bit of a
flourish -- then cut to the sound of waves lapping gently on to a
beach. This introduces our next theme)

Much better to stay on 'terra firma'. Take sand -- silica -- and fuse
it into long, thin strands, string them around the globe, pump some
laser light through them -- and you have a system that can take
anything you can dream of in sound and pictures around the world, in
any amount, in no time, at (almost) no cost. Much of this network is
already in place, a lot of it in the sea ...

[sound of sea on beach swells up]

Wouldn't it make sense to keep the SAME system coming right into your
home? Even if you didn't know its almost magical technical
capabilities?
[sorry, no time for Free’s segment]
To conclude this brief excursion into the sphere of communications, we might return to thepolicy issue with veteran communications practitioner and multi-media adviser LES FREE:
[Free’s out]

[repeat rocket explosion]

Yes! Make a noise! See if Mr KEATING cares:
[slight pause - meanwhile sea sound swells up gradually during the next two iterations]

Mr KEATING?
[long pause]

Mr KEATING??
[longer pause]

Mr KEATING!?!
[prolonged silence - sea sound washes pronouncedly over the end of the silence]

[change to newsreader voice]

AND IN NEWS JUST TO HAND...

...The government last night announced a first compromise on future
delivery of Pay-TV.

Any operator who wants to use microwave transmission rather than
satellite can do so from January first, 1995 -- whether a satellite
operator is by then up and running or not ...

[END]