[CMA TV] Jowell to confirm 2012 analogue switch off

[Michelle McGuire]

Source: Media Guardian
http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,1570139,00.html


Jowell to confirm 2012 analogue switch off

Owen Gibson and Dan Milmo
Thursday September 15, 2005
The Guardian

The culture secretary, Tessa Jowell, will confirm today that the  
analogue television signal will be phased out by 2012, with the  
Borders ITV region the first to go fully digital in 2008.

The elderly and disabled will receive help to make the digital leap,  
including subsidised set-top boxes giving them access to the Freeview  
digital terrestrial network. Ms Jowell is expected to tell TV  
executives at the Royal Television Society convention in Cambridge  
that the analogue signal will start to disappear from 2008, with 38%  
of the country's digital homes yet to be converted to digital.

The analogue signal will be blacked out by ITV regions, ending with  
Ulster in 2012. Ms Jowell will announce a package of practical and  
financial support for the elderly and disabled viewers who may not be  
able to afford Freeview, BSkyB or cable.

However, no firm decisions have yet been made on how the subsidy will  
be financed, although the BBC licence fee is expected to be the main  
source of funding. BSkyB, the digital satellite broadcaster, has  
claimed that the BBC's promotion of Freeview freezes out other  
platforms and breaks European commission rules on state aid.

A cross-industry group, dubbed SwitchCo, has been established to  
oversee the switch-off process. The body, which represents  
broadcasters, manufacturers and retailers, has recruited Ford Ennals,  
a former marketing director of Lloyds TSB, as chief executive and is  
chaired by Channel 4's deputy chairman, Barry Cox.

Ms Jowell is expected to tell the Cambridge audience that switching  
off the analogue signal will leave the country with a legacy of "more  
choice for more people than anywhere else in the world ... For the  
first time everyone in the country will by 2012 have the same access  
to digital TV," the minister is expected to say. "No more rural  
communities effectively cut-off from the media world that the rest of  
us inhabit - the disabled pensioner having the same access to digital  
as the City broker."

A mini-switchover process was conducted in two Welsh villages this  
year as the government sought to identify difficulties it might face.  
The project in Ferryside and Llansteffan in Carmarthenshire was  
described as a success by officials, who said people in rural areas  
had been more open to change in their viewing habits than expected.


-- 
Michelle McGuire
Editor, Airflash Magazine
Development Officer

Community Media Association
http://www.commedia.org.uk

15 Paternoster Row
Sheffield S1 2BX
UK
Tel. + 44 (0) 114 279 5219


"Access to the media for people and communities"