I was just browsing the Australian Digital TV forums and found this post, which links to this press release from Free TV Australia.

'Twould seem that the local television networks have finally realised that there's an advantage to providing an electronic program guide to the public, and are getting together to publish a free solution.

For those lucky US readers who weren't aware: Up 'til now, the Australian free-to-air television networks have used copyright law (yes, copyright law) to protect their program guides - preventing anybody (including Microsoft) from providing a free EPG unless they manually enter the data. There are a few hacked-together solutions available for Windows Media Center (including the fantastic Free*EPG), but nothing official.

The only thing that concerns me is the paragraph in the press release that talks about the EPG data only being made available to vendors who comply with "some base level requirements designed to protect copyright, protect the integrity of the program information and facilitate collection of ratings information." That's a bit of a worry. I hope the ability to record a program doesn't mean we can't use the EPG!