The Beginning of the End

Captions reminding viewers to get ready for digital switchover will appear on televisions in the Scottish Borders for the first time from May 6, 2008. Homes served by the Selkirk, Bonchester Bridge, Clovenfords, Eyemouth, Galashiels, Hawick, Innerleithen, Jedburgh, Lauder, Peebles, Stow and Yetholm transmitters still watching analogue services in the Border TV region will see the on-screen messages six months before these signals are switched off and replaced with Freeview channels. The captions, lasting one minute, will appear on BBC One, BBC Two, ITV1, Channel 4 and Five during programmes over a two-week period. They will advise viewers:
‘If you can see this, your TV will be affected by the switchover on 6th November. Questions? Call Digital UK on 0845 234 0388’
The captions will be repeated three months and one month before switchover, increasing in size and frequency. They will occupy a full quarter of the screen in the final run up to the switch.
Selkirk will be the first main station in the UK to switch off analogue services, beginning with BBC2 Scotland on November 6th. The remaining analogue services from Selkirk and its relays will be switched off on the 20th of November.

So they will list an 0845 (now recognised as a "premium rate") number? Charming.

I was thinking exactly the same, Gavin, as I read RJG's original post.

That's absolutely disgusting, in my opinion.

They really ought to be using an "03" level number, rather than ripping off the poor punters who probably understand about as little about premium rate telephony costs as they do about digital television.

Talk about picking on the people who don't understand in the first place.

I don't think all the 08+ numbers have transferred yet, and of course this leads to more confusion. It begs the question whether Ofcom have resolved an issue here with the 03+ numbers or created another goldmine for unscrupulous types.

Not all of them will be transferred, will they? I thought it was up to the person operating the service to request the change rather than numbers be automatically transferred from 0845 to 0345 etc. (some of will have once been 0345 numbers that got transferred to 0845 7).

It's up to the company holding the number to decide whether to transfer. No numbers will be transferred automatically.

The company can either stay on an "08" level number (excluding numbers on the 080 level, which are free to the caller) and be considered "premium rate" because the calls are now extremely expensive compared to calls to numbers on the "01", "02" and "03" levels; or request a move to the "03" level, calls to which, by law, must be at exactly the same rate, and in exactly the same free call packages, as calls to "01" and "02" level numbers.

Additionally, not all numbers will transfer to "0345". There are many other codes on the "03" level. Government departments, for instance, including NHS numbers, will transfer and become "0300" numbers.

I think the NHS has been allocated numbers starting "0300 111".

so this is how the switch over is taking place by some caption in the corner of are tv screens?

Yes.

thank you for that comfirmation jugalug