The Digital Switchover Starts
In the UK the great digital switchover starts in 2008 and is due to finish in 2012. The analogue TV signal will be switched off leaving millions of televisions, video players and equipment obsolete. The Digital Switch Over provides information on the schedule for the switchover, options for obtaining digital TV, and discusses the greater issues involved.
Tessa Jowell, the Minister for Culture and Sport, announced the Great Digital Switchover on 15 September 2005 in a speech to the Royal Television Society in Cambridge. “Digital TV is no longer a probability, it is a certainty. And I believe it can leave us with a legacy of more choice for more people than anywhere else in the World” she said.
The Start of a New, Digital Revolution
As it happens, we agree. Digital television is little short of the start of a digital revolution in our use of television in the home.
| “When new technology comes along, Governments have two choices - and only two. They can follow it trying to make retrospective sense of how society is changing as a result. Or they can be ahead of the curve, shaping the future and ensuring the fruits of technology are evenly spread. We have chosen the latter    Tessa Jowel, September 2005 |
We must not loose sight of the fact that as far reaching as the implications of this change are in our use of TV, its implementation is a logistical exercise of immeasurable proportions.
