- 4
Plans to regulate VOD services announced
The Government today (Thursday) published its plans to regulate video-on- demand (VOD) television services through amendments to the Television Ordinance.
The Television (Amendment) Bill 1996, endorsed by the Governor in Council early this week, provides for the creation of a new category of "programme service" licence for those wishing to provide VOD television services on a point-to-point basis within Hong Kong.
The Secretary for Broadcasting, Culture and Sport, Mr Chau Tak-hay, said the Bill would provide the necessary legal framework to ensure that VOD television services were properly regulated. The scope of licensing will be limited to services comprising television programmes, including films, he added.
The Bill will not seek to regulate VOD television services originating outside Hong Kong. "Even though such services would not be commercially practicable for some time, we considered carefully whether we should attempt to regulate VOD services transmitted to subscribers here from points outside Hong Kong," said Mr Chau.
"But quite apart from the difficulty of detecting such services amongst the mass of data flowing over telecommunication systems in Hong Kong, we think that it would be wrong to interfere with people's freedom and privacy of communications."
Mr Chau also expected the growth of the Internet to have a significant impact on VOD services within the next two to four years. Although VOD services on the Internet were not a practicable commercial proposition for the time being, he said, it was likely that the spread of broadband networks would bring such services closer to reality within a few years. For this reason, the Broadcasting, Culture and Sport Branch would review the regulation of VOD as part of its 1998 review of the television environment.
Mr Chau said that, depending on how soon the legislation was enacted, it might be possible to invite applications for VOD television service licences by the end of the first quarter of 1997, and to issue licences by the middle of the year. He added that, while all applications would be considered carefully, the Government had in mind to issue just two licences, pending a review of the television environment in 1998.