Digital Switchover Begins Today
The town of Whitehaven in Cumbria today became the first place in the UK to lose its analogue signal as the digital switchover begins.
The two-stage process for 25,000 homes in Whitehaven began in the early hours of this morning, when the analogue BBC Two signal was turned off.
Four weeks from now, on November 14, the remaining analogue channels will cease transmission and the full line-up of 20 free-to-air digital channels will become available.
This two-stage process will then be repeated across the UK until switchover is completed in 2012.
However, it looks as if many Whitehaven households are unprepared for switchover, with a report earlier in the week claiming that up to 20% have not yet bought a digital set-top box (see 20% Of Households In Whitehaven Not Ready For Switchover).
Digital UK – the body leading digital switchover in the UK – said that around 5,000 households in Whitehaven were not yet ready for the analogue TV signal to be switched off.
At the end of September, Digital UK launched an £8 million national information campaign to promote switchover (see Digital UK Launches Switchover Information Campaign), which followed the launch of a Freeview ad campaign in Cumbria using “local heroes” to promote the service (see Freeview Launches ‘Local Hero’ Ad Campaign).
A report from Ofcom in September revealed that UK-wide household take-up of digital television, via Freeview, digital satellite or cable TV, rose to almost 85% to the end of June 2007.
Ofcom added that 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% (see Digital TV Penetration Reaches Almost 85%).
Digital UK says that after switchover is completed in 2012, 98.5% of UK homes will be able to receive digital TV via Freeview, up from 73% at the start of the programme.
Countries across the EU have agreed to try to complete switchover by 2012. At the end of 2006, Holland became the first country to switch completely to digital signals.
In a country of 16 million households, only around 74,000 relied primarily on over the air antennas, as the overwhelming majority of TV in the country is received via cable (see Holland Switches Off).
The next country to fully complete switchover should be Sweden, some time next year.
Digital UK: www.digitaluk.co.uk