Digital Switchover - Regional Timetable

No, they will all be switched off when analogue transmissons end.


Did anybody spot the sarcasm there?

Ah well, good to see Offcom have finally sorted out a switch off programme; it has taken a little too long, but lets hope this plan doesn't get consigned to the "later" pile.

I thought you meant that till i scrolled down the page!
:

LOL

I've lived in a "Digital-Only" household since 2001 (Sky+ saw me getting a 2nd box for upstairs and me ripping down my aerial) - it's about time OFCOM stopped dilly dallying around!

Simon

We've got freeview downstairs but we're not getting sky digital till we get our new house.

That's way too soon. What'll we do for Ceefax when London and the Channel Islands will still be able to get it in 2011?

Charles and Nicholas - No, I wasn't.
Alright - 50 smackers may have been a bit extreme - we'll settle on £25 and wave the fee if the payer is over 65 years old (thus hoping freeview boxes are given free to this age bracket).

Face facts, here's where I'm coming from with my reasoning.
Come 2008 when Border dissappears from 'normal' transmissions you will still have some luddites who will refuse to budge and can't understand why this is being done, and will start an organzied letter writing campain to their MP's.
And the thought of pages of drivel and bogus outrage sturred up by the Daily Mail is making me feel sick already.

If - the level of apathy across middle England is reduced from this point onward, and the only way to make what hopefully will be around less than quarter of the country get used to pressing an extra button on another remote control before the picture arrives on the tv set, is to force change via the wallet.

Basic maths - basic physiology here. Tell people that can pay as little as £40 now for a freeview box in 2005, or leave it until 2008-12 and pay an extra £75- 200 in total on the licence fee.

It would work....

Spotlight had this as their lead story tonight. It was slightly alarmist. It went along the lines of "If you don't by a new digital tv in the next 3 years, you will no longer be able to watch Spotlight".

Some of the details were slightly wrong, including the statement that customers would have to 'Subscribe" to satellite television.

It's probably likely that BBC Ceefax will have ended by 2010 or so, as very few people by that time will have stopped using in favour of BBCi. All I can imagine is that a skeleton service will remain and that BBC Ceefax will gradually be pulled off air region by region. It'll probably disappear when the main regions have been switched off, such as the North and the Midlands.

Oh my goodness, haven’t been called that since Mummy did it, back in the forties!

I’m glad we generally agree, however.


Yes, watched tonight’s Spotlight, Phil, and I agree they were a tad too alarmist.


Now you really ARE being a complete idiot, Simon.

Press the red button, for God’s sake.

Why does that make me an idiot? It's a pertinent enough question.

Move to Kent?

Why on earth would you asume that Ceefax would be available ANYWHERE until 2011?

I would expect Ceefax to be long gone by 2008 in ALL regions.

Page 888 would be retained on analogue for the Luddites, but on the digital platforms it'll be removed and you'll have to switch the subtitle option on, as you already do on ITV on digital.