Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts Dr Yaacob Ibrahim announced on Monday that MediaCorp's seven 'Free-to-Air' channels will be available on the Internet within the next year.
The initiative, he said, will be a good way forSingaporeans overseas to be updated on events at home through the latest local TV programmes and be entertained by other programmes that MediaCorp has rights to.
Dr Yaacob, who was speaking at the InfocommMedia Business Exchange (IMBX) opening ceremony, added that the media company will be announcing the details of this service nearer to its implementation, reported Channel News Asia.
Touching on the 3DTV trial which he said has been successful since its implementation a year ago, the country's Pay-TV operators — StarHub and SingTel, as well as Free-to-Air operator MediaCorp — are now able to transmit 3D content into homes.
SingTel's mioTV has also recently successfully screened the Barclays Premier League match between Arsenal and Manchester United in 3D-format to all its subscribers.
The Republic is also on track in its plans to go fully digital, in line with ASEAN's committed timeframe to switch off analogue TV transmission between 2015 and 2020.
Dr Yaacob said following ASEAN's adoption of the DVB-T standard for Digital Terrestrial Television,Singapore is looking into the early migration to DVB-T2, the second and latest generation of this standard.
The move will provide consumers with an enhanced viewing experiences and greater choices in TV content and services.
Dr Yaacob said the Media Development Authority (MDA) is now putting in place a nationwide trial network to determine how the new standard can be suitably adopted for Singapore's terrain.
With this network, Singapore will be among the first in the region to establish a wide-scale DVB-T2 trial infrastructure, and MDA is planning for the trial network to be installed by September 2011.