BBC2 first to go fully digital

Just seen this on BBC News Online, which says BBC2 will switch off it's analogue signal about a month before any other channel.

When it switches off will depend by region - which the article bizarrely uses the ITV regions to show when BBC2 will disappear from analogue screens:

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40810000/gif/_40810076_uk_tv_regions_map203.gif

First for colour, now first for digital?

I see some sort of connection here...

Ofcom have always made it clear that analogue shut-off will be by Channel 3 franchises, although I wasn't sure of the reason in view of the ownership by a single plc in all but 4 of the areas. Perhaps this was something decided well before the Granada/Carlton merger, and respected the fact that "nominally" there should have been a C3 Franchise Round prior to 2012

EDIT:
Having looked at the map, it appears to have been revised. Westcountry were due to be shut off in late 2008, I now see it has moved to 2009

EDIT 2:
I have read the article (on the BBCi link thanks Isonstine )....and it appears BBC are intending to push people towards Freeview rather than FreeSat since they don't mention the latter, or rebuke the "anti-Switch-off Lobby" comment that some can't receive a DTT signal).

Perhaps it's worth remembering that this sort of fuss must have been made for the following:
Conversion to decimal currency (1971)
Conversion from 405 line to 625 line (colour) TV (1970s)
Conversion from Imperial to Metric measurements (1980/90s)
and money wasn't offered then to the "refusniks" - why is it being offered now?

I believe ITV regions are used throughout the media industries as convenient shorthand for supposed demographic profiles - hence supplements in newspapers will sometimes be billed as being available in "Granada Region only" or "Carlton/LWT/Meridian Regions only", even in print.

Such demographic profiles are, of course, very broad and very often tar the wider populations of those areas with the same brush as a small inner-city 'anti-elite'. e.g. Granada = "All young people from an area bound by Stoke-on-Trent at the bottom to North Yorkshire at the top spend every evening at the Hacienda downing Es by the hundred and every afternoon bunking off school at the Arndale Centre shoplifting from JJB Sports whilst under the influence of White Lightning".

I take your point Mark, but I wouldn't say that form of shorthand is widespread. Very often here in the Westcountry region we have adverts on many commercial channels showing "special offers" or "new products" with the discreet caveat caption of "Only in Plymouth"

I really think that analogue shutdown is all to do with the basic cancellation/rescinding of Ofcom analogue licences, and that can best be done by C3 franchise area.

The ownership of the regions is neither here nor there. The reason is purely so they can advertise it clearly to viewers.
Most people know what ITV region they live in, less people would know the names of their local transmitter, or any other way they could use to split the country into areas.

Also it's operationally easier, The transmitters are grouped into those regions and any messages to the public (like the scrolling message about switch off mentioned today) can be targetted to the appropriate part of the country very easily on both the BBC and ITV1 (Although in the case of Border, not so easily for the BBC as they don't have a Border region as such). Features about switch off can also be included in the relevent local news programmes.

Yep - the point about switch off and regions is that the ITV regions are based around transmitter footprints. The BBC have similar regions and more geographic names - but the ITV versions are probably still more widely known. (There is much discussion about South West, West, South and South East...)

As the switch off is region by region - and thus tied to the transmitter - I suspect that a couple of weeks before switch off NTL and Crown Castle (or whatever they are now called) will install simple caption generators warning that the service will be switched off - at the transmitter. This doesn't depend on the regional centres - so is as easy for the BBC as ITV to do - though when covering in local news terms, and for trails etc. which may be run, then the BBC will have more difficulty with regions like Border.