By Marco Vermaasen
Herald staff

After years of going back and forth with the implementation of a digital television system in the country, now seems to be the right timing for embracing the new technology.

The government is determined to pass a new broadcasting law in Congress, private companies — hit by the economic slowdown — are eager to replace TV sets with newer ones, and international organizations have offered loans to fund the modernization of the sector, which has remained almost unchanged since the 1950s.

President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is known for making ground-shaking announcements, especially if she can depict them as a way to increase the welfare of the lower classes. And that is precisely the argument of a European commission that met with officials of the Kirchner administration this week to convince the latter of adopting the European digital television standard in Argentina.

Speaking at a small press conference in Buenos Aires City, Christophe Forax, a member of the European Commission’s committee promoting the implementation of digital television in other parts of the world, praised the good results the DVB — the standard in high-definition television in Europe — has shown in the region compared to the two competing systems, the Japanese ISDB-T and the ATSC of the United States.
Hi-definition television standard — like the ones of the previous generation, PAL and NTSC — are only ways the digital information is decoded. Each one has advantages and disadvantages, but perhaps the two more important ones are their cost and the volume of each system measured by the number of neighbouring countries sharing the same technology.

The European commission claims its DVB system is more democratic, as it is three times more affordable than a similar Japanese system installed in Brazil. Even though the Argentine government has not made any final decision on the subject, during a recent visit to Brazil Fernández de Kirchner said Argentina was working with the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to “agree on a joint digital television standard.”
A common digital TV system for Latin America, however, is out of reach, as Uruguay, Panama, and Colombia have already adopted DVB. Argentina is thus facing a dilemma. It could either follow the steps of Brazil — its main partner within the Mercosur regional bloc, whose president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, already said he supported the idea of using the same standards in the two countries — or adopting the European, more affordable system.

Even though the Argentine market is relatively small, millions of dollars are at stake. Hundreds of European companies, eager to set foot on the pampas and sell this new technology, are actively pressing their governments to negotiate with the countries of the region.

To encourage Argentina to adopt DVB, the EU said it would grant the country access to almost three billion dollars in funds of the European Investment Bank for the region. “Europe has between 2.8 and three billion dollars for projects in Latin America, and has offered the Argentine government those funds to purchase antennas and compression material if it chooses the European standard,” said Gustavo Martín Prada, head of the delegation of the European Commission in Argentina, who was also present during the conference.

Prada meanwhile said that next month the government would be granted a credit line to fund a major project in Argentina. He declined to specify on the nature of such initiative. “The EIB has solved its dispute with Argentina after the default, and will announce an important loan for the country in the next months.”
According to the European official, the adoption of DVB in Colombia — which already has 45 percent of its TVs operating with the new system — cost about 10 to 20 million dollars. Consumers should pay a much larger cost. They will need to purchase the signal decoders, ranging from 58 dollars (DVB) to the 138 dollars of the Brazilian system.

Forax blasted the Brazilian system for failing to gain popularity among possible users. “Only about 0.5 or 1 percent of Brazilians has bought the new equipment,” he said, comparing it to the case of Colombia, where the government is already working to set a date for the “analog shutdown,” the end of all analog broadcasting in the country.