Global Technological Change

At the core of developments in broadcasting were technological advances and the responses of governments and large private corporations. The development of the microchip, in particular, heralded an enormous shift in the way we live and work, paralleling the industrial revolution (Rowe, 1986). As the implications of the explosive growth of new communications technologies and media became clearer throughout the eighties, the "information age" label became common parlance. The swift movement of information and ideas changed, among other things, our way of doing business, making the global economy a reality in the last decade. The new media meant quantum leaps in the amount of information available to people and, as Cheesbro and Bonsall (1989) point out, the media are becoming increasingly integrated and interactive.

Electronic broadcasting was both caught up in this change and a key player. In the last decade we have entered what Rowe (1986) terms the third age of broadcasting, "from radio, to television, to satellite and cable channels" (p.141).

At the outset of the study period, broadcasters and legislators were assessing the implications of new technologies. Satellites, fibre optic cables, digitalisation and compression techniques have changed the way we view electronic broadcasting. They put paid to the idea that broadcasting is a scarce commodity, opened up the national broadcasters to global competition and, because of the growing interface with computers, thrust television into the broader telecommunications industry.

As seen in Chapter Two, the limited number of terrestrial channels was part of the rationale for regulating broadcasting. Satellites and cable meant a huge expansion of the number of channels available. While both have been round for several decades, rapid advances since 1980 have changed the nature of their delivery. Each "generation" of satellite has been able to deliver more channels, and satellite dishes have gone from being the pride of a nation or corporation to a backyard phenomenon. All this, argue those who support deregulation, makes regulating terrestrial channels irrelevant for those countries beneath the "footprint", or transmission area, of a satellite.

However, as Rowe (1986) said, "it is when satellite and cable are used in conjunction that their importance becomes fully apparent" (p. 136). While cable television had been steadily growing for many years, the invention of fibre optic cable, carrying thousands of times more information than copper wire, opened up enormous possibilities. This newer cable carries two-way telephone and computer information, as well as a large number of channels. At the outset of the study period, manufacturers were already working towards a television screen which would double as a computer screen.

These links, between cable and satellite, and television and computers, tie the future of broadcasting closely to the future of telecommunications . Broadcasting came to be regarded in a different way, as its purpose and function were rethought.

These technological challenges confronted regulators and broadcasters throughout the world, evoking a variety of responses. But while technology does affect form and content of programme output, it is not the only factor. Head (1985) describes the process of change as a series of complex three-way interactions among:

( 1 ) the universal attributes of broadcasting as a technology, (2) the

universal attributes of humans as communicators and receivers of communications, and (3) the specific political, cultural and economic attributes of any given society (p.9).

However, the general response to the new wave of technological development was to move towards deregulation. In this, the developments in the USA, both at the theoretical level and in the practice of the FCC, were profoundly influential (Porter, 1989). Streeter (1983) characterises the response of the FCC as "a faith in new

technologies". Its 1980 Final Report on New Television Networks was critical of past regulatory efforts and suggested problems could be solved by eliminating current rules. FCC chairman Mark Fowler and his successor Dennis Patrick "profoundly believed that the marketplace could far better serve many of the needs that regulation had clumsily attempted to address in a less abundant past" (Aufderheide, 1990, p.49). Despite some counter-reaction in Congress, deregulation moved apace in the U.S. in the late 1980s.

Responses and debates in Britain were also influential in New Zealand, as Chapter Five demonstrates. Britain had operated in a highly regulated broadcasting market until the 1 980s. Then the 1982 Hunt Report marked "a watershed in broadcasting policy" (Veljanovski, 1989a, p.9). The report was generally recognised as a liberal, strongly deregulating document (Rowe, 1986), freeing up cable television and allowing it to compete outright with the BBC and ITV for audiences. Veljanovski notes the Hunt proposals were designed to rejuvenate the telecommunications manufacturing industry and fit in with the privatisation of British Telecom and the overall scheme for telecommunications deregulation. It was the first of a series of reports and papers throughout the eighties advocating dismantling elements of the regulatory structure.

Bell (1993) notes the state motivation for broadcasting is everywhere couched in terms of the imperatives established by technological developments, with a major threat being the development of satellite broadcasting with footprints crossing the boundaries of nation states. But, she points out, nations are not helpless; they can regulate the sale of decoders and also, as Europe is attempting, link supra-nationally to maintain some control over satellite broadcast content.