Foxtel, Telstra with their T Box service and Fetch TV, who will shortly launch a new IPTV service via Optus, are facing increased operating costs as free to air TV stations seek approval to charge for the retransmission of commercial networks on IPTV stations.

Foxtel Telstra with their T Box service and Fetch TV, who will shortly launch a new IPTV service via Optus, are facing increased operating costs as free to air TV stations seek  approval to charge for the retransmission of commercial networks on IPTV stations.

Last week Free TV Australia, who represents the free to air TV networks in Australia, dropped a bombshell when they lodged a submission with the Federal Government calling for the introduction of retransmission fees similar to what US networks CBS, ABC and NBC charge cable networks in the USA.

At present 80% of Foxtel’s 1.25 million customers watch their free to air TV via a Foxtel set top box.

Foxtel who pay nothing for the free to air TV network’s content has clashed over Communications Minister Stephen Conroy’s recent decision to grant the free to air TV networks $250 million in licence fee rebates in both 2010 and 2011.

Free TV submission argues that the local IPTV industry was “built on the back” of rules allowing “retransmission of free-to-air broadcasts without the permission of the broadcaster”. Their claim states “There is a clear potential for new entertainment platforms such as IPTV and internet television to use free-to-air signals under existing retransmission rules in order to build their businesses”.

Free TV chief executive Julie Flynn told the Australian newspaper that the submission had been prompted by growing demand for IPTV services and construction of the National Broadband Network rather than a desire “to pick a fight with pay-TV”, but “we will be prosecuting our case here as strongly as Mr Murdoch did in the US”.