John Fairfax Holdings Limited
ACN 008 663 161

John Fairfax Holdings Limited has put forward a major framework for datacasting in the context of the development and rollout of digital TV in Australia.

In its submission to the Department of Communications, Fairfax called for adoption of a broad definition of datacasting, to ensure that it covers enhanced programming services offered by the television networks. Fairfax also advocated placing regulation of datacasting under the Australian Communications Authority, the expert agency on multimedia and interactive services.

Mr Nigel Dews, General Manager, Business Development and Online Services, said: "Fairfax is committed to developing a wide and robust array of datacasting services, allowing viewers to access, on an interactive basis 24 hours a day, news, sport finance and weather; to shop from home; and to access other online services, including the Internet.

"The central premise of our paper is the need for a broad definition of ‘datacasting’. We also believe the best public policy goals require that "enhanced programming" is treated the same as datacasting."

Under the digital television law, enacted earlier this year, broadcasters will pay no spectrum fees for the provision of new digital television services, such as high definition television.

With regard to the datacasting and enhanced programming issues, Mr  Dews said: "If enhanced television services to be offered by the commercial television stations are, however, defined in such a way as to include datacasting, or data services, the spectrum used for such data services by broadcasters will also be exempt from any user fees. Those same services provided by datacasters and other content providers, however, would attract spectrum use fees.

"It is therefore critical, at the outset, to get the distinction right between broadcasting and datacasting."

21 December, 1998

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For further information, please contact

Nigel Dews, (02) 9282 2268

John Fairfax [ASX:FXJ] is Australia’s leading publishing group. Its mastheads include The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian Financial Review, The Age, The Sun-Herald, and BRW. In addition, the Company publishes financial and consumer magazines, and provides online services. In 1998, the Company had revenues of over $1.1 billion. Fairfax is Australia’s leading content provider on the Internet, with more than 20 million page views per month, and 100,000 site visits per day.

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