2. Free-to-air TV and time-zone restrictions

Published on 25 October 2011. Last modified on 18 November 2011.

Subscription television is not subject to time-zone restrictions and increasingly people can watch what they want at any time with video on demand and catch-up TV services (such as the ABC's iview or TiVo). Should free-to-air television continue to be subject to time-zone restrictions? For example, should free-to-air television continue to be prohibited from broadcasting MA15+ content before 9pm, or should devices such as parental locks be used to restrict children's access to inappropriate content? 

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Comments (7)

No, and free-to-air should

Submitted by Irene G on 31 October 2011.
No, and free-to-air should also be allowed to broadcast R18+ content. I would probably not support that happening right now given the ACMA parental lock standard/requirement for TV equipment only came into effect in February. However, given typical political legislative timeframes, I'm doubtful any ALRC recommendations would be enacted before analogue TV service ceases throughout Australia, by which time a substantial proportion of the population are likely to have parental lock capable equipment. While there probably would be legitimate concern that some parents had bought non-lock-capable digital equipment pre-February (I've no idea how many products weren't capable before then), rather than continuing laws/rules designed for analogue TV merely for that reason, imo it would be preferable that the gov't subsidise the purchase of lock-capable equipment for e.g. low income families with children under 15 years who prove they'd bought non-lock equip pre Feb 2011, or something like that. Any such subsidisation should not commence until the date of final switchoff and/or much nearer to commencement of any new classification/broadcasting legislation that changed rules about what FTV may broadcast and when.

Tome zone restrictions are an

Submitted by cw on 25 October 2011.
Tome zone restrictions are an anachronism. With the migration to digital TV that enables multi casting and the requirement of ACMA for all set top boxes and digital TVs to enable parental locks time zone restrictions are not required. I think broadcasters should be free to provide R18+ or MA15+ content at any time of the day as long as broadcasters provide accurate EIT (electronic programme guide) information that can be used together with parental controls on digital receivers.

You would like to think that

Submitted by JOT on 25 October 2011.
You would like to think that parents, not parental locks, would be used to restrict what children access. If the parents really pay very little attention to what their kids watch then most likely a kid could record a program at 9 pm and then watch it at 4 pm the next day i.e. through time-shifting, the restriction on time-of-day is less effective than it used to be. With the advent of TV that is delivered via the network (whether internet or otherwise) "time of day" doesn't mean as much as it used to. That is, for a content provider to implement "time of day", the content provider has to know what time it is where the viewer is and has to be able to restrict selectively, either of which may not be technically possible, and the content provider has to care. None of this relates directly to free-to-air but in the interests of a level playing field, consideration should be given to scrapping the time of day restrictions. Parental controls certainly exist in currently available equipment if a parent wants to use that.

I believe for the near future

Submitted by Fred on 25 October 2011.
I believe for the near future that indeed free to air should have the restrictions remain in force. Reason: Free to air has no restrictions on who can watch it at any time. The viewer has no control over what is viewed apart from a very limited number of channels. Viewing a recorded telecast (FTA, PAY, DVD) is a choice of the program from the millions of choices that are now available. They are then responsible for what is viewed. From this we see that viewing a recorded program/show is decided by the viewer, but FTA is a very limited choice and not decided by the viewer. So the reason why this is significant is that Parents can control the recorded media but they cannot control the FTA content.

Can I qualify the near future

Submitted by Fred on 31 October 2011.
Can I qualify the near future statement. Once parental lock systems are widespread and analogue TV is finished with, then I see no reason for restrictions. The parental lock system provides for the restrictions as the parent chooses. As I.G. says subsidise the purchase of parental lock systems for those I.G. indicated.

It is always the

Submitted by Brownbear on 28 October 2011.

It is always the responsibility of the parents to supervise what their children watch on TV.

With the advent of digital TV as far as I am aware all the set top boxes and the digital sets have parental control locks.and it is up to the parent if they so desire to use them.

Once the switch to digital is complete I can see no reason why the time restrictions should remain.

I agree with Fred. Once a

Submitted by Oliver Yeudall on 25 October 2011.
I agree with Fred. Once a program reaches a sevice like iView, the user has far greater control of what they see. This is in opposition to a live broadcast, where content is far harder to control by the viewer. They may be able to change the channel, but by then the damage is already done. A connected issue is time restriction not just of the shows themselves, but of the advertising. The ACMA already controls the types of adverts which can be shown in conjunction with certain shows/timeslots, so using their existing guidelines will be a good start.