The Program of Transition to Digital Television Launched in Moldova

Moldova is going to switch to digital terrestrial broadcasting starting June 17, 2015. Some media experts have expressed concern that the country has not taken the necessary measures for the transition to go smoothly and that delaying the process could strongly affect the population. In their view, the launch of the digital television program is a lengthy process that requires careful preparation, which has not happened in Moldova, where Government approved an action plan in this regard only in May this year.

Asked by Media Azi, Dumitru Parfentiev, Deputy Minister of Information Technology and Communications, said that our country was ready to switch to digital terrestrial broadcasting, to meet the commitment made by signing the regional Agreement on planning the digital terrestrial broadcasting service at the Conference in Geneva in 2006, ratified by Parliament in March 2008. According to him, the shift to digital terrestrial broadcasting would go in parallel with analogue terrestrial TV broadcasting, which would allow for further broadcasting of all available channels via conventional analogue television.

The process involves not only technical changes that will allow Moldova to be in line with other neighboring countries (Ukraine and Romania), but also complex action to modernize broadcasting. The Deputy Minister noted that the national testing of the digital rebroadcasting of Moldova 1 channel began a month ago, with a view to check the level of the signal from the digital television stations, as well as the quality of reception of the signals aired by the analogue television operators. He also said that the first multiplex (digital TV network) with national coverage that currently broadcasts Moldova 1 TV channel has the capacity to broadcast 15 channels. "It is necessary that Parliament approve urgently the amendments to the Broadcasting Code, which will allow for selecting other television channels that will be part of the first multiplex. Changes have already been approved by Government and have been forwarded to Parliament for approval", informed us Dumitru Parfentiev.

In turn, Victor Gotisan, media researcher, coauthor of the report on mapping digital media in the Republic of Moldova, believes that the transition from analogue to digital television in Moldova can be considered a failure for a number of reasons. "When I say that the digitization process has failed, I mean that all we have only managed in almost 10 years was to develop a Strategy and a Program, while they could have been produced in a couple of months. Hence the conclusion that the main – classical – steps of the transition process have been neglected".

As for the causes of the delay, Victor Gotisan believes that the delay was caused by "personal considerations of certain people or entities", whose concern was to take care of other things than media modernization, or whose goal was "to squeeze some money out of this process, mostly through the much debated acquisition of the set-top boxes". The media researcher believes that the average citizen's interest "has been forgotten or placed somewhere in the bottom of the list of priorities", as the people do not know what digitization is, to this day, while awareness raising should have been the first step in the process. "How can one even talk about digitization if the core law – the Broadcasting Code – never even mentions the word "digitization" as such?", concluded Victor Gotisan.

When asked by Media Azi whether the Government program provides for public information campaigns, Dumitru Parfentiev responded that there were limited resources for that and therefore the information of population would mostly take the form of press releases and information materials that will be disseminated through the State Enterprise "Radiocomunicatii" and other partner institutions.

Thus, the people will learn, for example, that in order to be able to watch digital terrestrial programs they would need a DVB-T2 TV set (with built-in receiver) or an STB receiver. Typically, the new generation digital TVs are equipped with such receivers. The owners of old style TV sets will be able to continue receiving analogue television programs during the first three years. Later, however, they will need to buy an additional block, an image and sound converter (Top Box Set) from electrical goods stores. The subscribers to cable TV, satellite TV or IP-TV services will not have to pay additional fees. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Information Technology and Communications is expected to provide, within the available budget, STB receivers to needy families; after they are connected to the TV sets, the beneficiaries will be able to receive the digital terrestrial television signal.

 
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