From the moment the connection fee for the digital television platform was announced, it could be foreseen that there would come a time when the high monthly fees would start impacting some television companies.

Apia Broadcasting Limited’s channel TV3 became the first television company in Samoa to cut its connection to Samoa's Digital TV platform because it could not afford the connection fee and opted to have its content live-streamed.

The company could not afford the $23,000 monthly fee or $276,000 annually to keep its connection on the digital platform. That would be true for the other two television companies which have to generate more than a quarter million tala in fees annually.

The remaining six channels are paying $18,000 a month and that comes to $216,000 annually.

TV3 has been off-air since last Friday. This was when they severed links with the Samoa Digital Company Limited and now transmit all programmes online.

The company has come out saying that the market for television in Samoa is too small.

“There are eight TV stations which means for us to get sponsors and advertisements is not easy…the market is too small, I’m not sure how other TV stations are surviving but we can’t afford it,” said the TV3 general manager Michael Aisea.

The digital platform was an ambition of the former government as the world was evolving into a digital platform. The former government tendered the whole process and had a private company run the platform.

This private company would spend millions of dollars setting up the infrastructure. In this case, Samoa Digital Communications Limited spent over $6 million setting up the platform. The towers that help transmit the signals also require power to operate. It is not cheap.

In 2019, when the cost was initially announced many of the television companies decided that they would not want to pay that much. The government stepped in and it was resolved that all television companies would pay $18,000 monthly but in January 2022, the Office of the Regulator made orders that three commercial television companies could afford the fee from their audited accounts and their fee was increased to $23,000.

BYU TV, which was a university channel from Hawaii, did not even go on the digital platform saying it was too expensive.

This is a very tricky situation to solve. The television companies need advertising to earn revenue and Samoa being a small market, all media companies are running to the same customers. The size of the pie has not increased but the number of mouths has.

The government is also an advertiser and ministries spend substantial amounts on public service advisories and they also sponsor TV programmes.

That would also mean that the church-run television companies are being operated from the money of their flock and investments. The National University of Samoa also has a television channel and this means that they commit $216,000 annually towards this.

The problem now is finding a balance to see if the monthly fee is too high and how can the private company stay in operation. The digital TV platform was put in place for a reason. This was to ensure that all members of the public had access to high-quality television signals and that the government would be able to keep its people informed.

But now there is an evolution. The way people watch television is changing and also is the way television companies operate. It started in 2007 with Netflix where all the viewer requires is good internet. It is called streaming.

Television sets are becoming smarter. The TV can link to any website. This change is inevitable and TV3 has become the first company in Samoa to do that. The BBC and CNN are streaming as well. This is the future and whether we like it or not, people are preferring to cut chords.

For the private company that set up the digital platform, they would be looking at a return on their investment and ensuring that they can do that before the television companies start going down the path of streaming their services.

What TV3 has also done is opened the doors to other television companies by showing them that they can still broadcast their shows. TV3 is one of the leading providers of local visual content including sports, if they continue on that path, they could make streaming work.

The company has also kept all their staff and this is good news. Perhaps the government can step in one more time and provide a solution. A television company is also an employer and the streaming does not work well for TV3, job losses are imminent.

This one is a bit of a dilemma.