Taiwan Today

The Executive Yuan is evaluating the possibility of subsidizing the purchase of set-top-boxes for all households in Taiwan, according to Minister without Portfolio Chang Jin-fu. In a move to speed up the digitalization of Taiwan’s television transmissions, the government plans to hand out two coupons to each registered household for the purchase of two STBs, a device that enables traditional TV sets to receive digital signals. It is estimated that the policy will boost sales of such devices up to 14 million and create replacement demand for new TV sets. Chang said last week that it is a global trend to replace analogue broadcasting with digital transmissions. The United States completed the switchover in June 2009, and Taiwan should accelerate its efforts in this regard. The Cabinet’s Science and Technology Advisory Group has called on related ministries and agencies to formulate a feasible subsidy program. However, the amount of the subsidy has not yet been finalized. The minister expects the government to include the NT$3 billion (US$92.28 million) subsidy policy in its 2010 budget, start to turn off analogue broadcasting in 2011, and complete the conversion by around 2012. The United States spent around US$2 billion investing in related infrastructure and subsidizing each household for a maximum of US$80 for the purchase of STBs, it is understood. Albert Hsieh, secretary-general of the Taiwan Digital Television Committee, said that more than 1.5 million households on the island either have installed STBs on their cable TVs or own TV sets equipped with the function, with the percentage of digitalization reaching over 20 percent. The government should implement complementary measures to rev up the take-back of analogue channels, Hsieh noted. The secretary-general said that most broadcasters have been producing programs in the digital format, but have to broadcast them in the analogue mode in order to cope with the existing analogue channels. This has greatly reduced these TV programs’ image quality and added to broadcasters’ costs. These TV stations will be able to produce more diversified programs and increase their revenues after converting to the digital standard, he said. (SFC-THN)