20% Of Households In Whitehaven Not Ready For Switchover

Up to 20% of households in Whitehaven have not yet bought a digital set-top box, despite digital switchover starting there this Wednesday.

A report in yesterday’s Observer quotes figures from Digital UK – the body leading digital switchover in the UK – saying that around 5,000 households in Whitehaven are not yet ready for the analogue TV signal to be switched off, despite a comprehensive publicity campaign.

BBC2 will be the first channel to be switched off, in the early hours of Wednesday morning, with the rest of the analogue channels following four weeks later.

Switchover will then be rolled out across the entire country region-by-region over the next few years, finishing in 2012.

In August, Freeview launched an ad campaign using “local heroes” to promote the service, with press ads appearing in the Whitehaven News and other local press (see Freeview Launches ‘Local Hero’ Ad Campaign).

A report from Ofcom in September revealed that household take-up of digital television, via Freeview, digital satellite or cable TV, has risen to almost 85% to the end of June 2007 (see Digital TV Penetration Reaches Almost 85%).

A further 1.1% of homes now subscribe to analogue cable, taking the proportion of homes with multi-channel television at the end of Q2 2007 to 85%.

Digital UK: www.digitaluk.co.uk