Meridian and London DSO

I think that might be the case although it is the last of the big switchoffs excluding Northern Ireland which I suspect will be largely overlooked purely because it's Northern Ireland. There won't be a big 'it's over!' moment if it doesn't happen when CP switches.

I this is what the BBC did in 1985 when 405 lines was switched off, I think it all happened on one day then. The first video is a 405 line set showing the closedown and the second is it in colour
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sG52HcgKaD4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXZ-S1Z_Hzw

I quite agree, and the timing for BBC 1 and ITV would be perfect, 22:35hrs. I think it would get the message across better, to more viewers, rather than the adopted policy of quietly switching off in the middle of the night (well, 00:00 to 1am ish in most cases)



Lower key here in Hannington-land, and nothing directly from Digital UK through our letterbox, just a few street posters, and full page ads in the local rag.

If it's anything like the Central region was, there'll be more ads from Sky than Digital UK.

Yes, we had some Sky literature through the door, that strongly implied that to continue viewing after DSO, you need to subscribe to them.

They really are a shady cynical organisation.

Same with Granada region too, they even promoted a lot of their adverts on ITV1 saying Granada would be switching at that time.

I think I've had one of each through the door, but the Digital UK ads are everywhere - sides of buses, bus stops, poster sites, it's on virtually every break especially in daytime and they've even done up a tube train in pink for the occasion. As I say there are lot more places to advertise in London than more rural areas, and more people to get the message over to.

I didn't think the Sky campaign has been that bad, I know they can't explicitly say that theirs is the only way to go digital but it could have been a lot more cunning

You do have to give it to DigitalUK, their marketing is excellent. When we had switchover my home town (which isn't that big) had banners with the switchover date on most lamp posts along the high street, plus Cambridge train station was completely redecorated with Digital UK ads, including banners on the ticket barriers and ticket hall floor.

Well, they must have spent all their budget in the other regions, and London, because we've had nothing like that level of publicity here.

Perhaps, because we're the UK's 'Silicon Valley' they felt that we were far too savvy to need educating

International agreement ramps up pressure for another TV switchover

17 February 2012

A deal signed today by representatives of 165 countries has greatly
increased the likelihood of a second digital switchover across Europe. This
could involve viewers having to retune their sets or buy a new set top box
or TV. It comes only a few years after they had to replace equipment to
receive digital terrestrial television.

The agreement was made at the World Radio Conference (WRC) in Geneva, held
by the United Nations body with responsibility for Information and
Communications Technology, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).


Delegates agreed to clear the way for mobile services in the 700 MHz band,
which is currently used for terrestrial TV in most of Europe. The deal means
that from 2015 mobile services operating in this band could legally demand
protection from interference by other countries.

In practice this means that the 700 MHz band could not be used for mobile
and broadcasting where two countries shared a land border as the mobile
signals would be drowned out by the high power broadcasting signal. This
creates a strong pressure for regional blocks, like the EU, to use the 700
MHz band for either broadcasting or mobile.

The switchover from analogue to digital TV has freed up the 800 MHz band for
mobile services, a process known as the digital dividend and coordinated
across Europe. This was agreed over the past few years, and the emergence of
this deal for a second “digital dividend” in 700 MHz has taken many by
surprise.

Furthermore, 700 MHz will be globally harmonised as it is also a mobile band
in North America and the Asia - Pacific. Today’s agreement will ultimately
extend that arrangement to Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Ironically, what may be a headache for Europe will be good news for Africa
and the Middle East who proposed the 700 MHz mobile agreement. In these two
regions 800 MHz is used for other services, meaning that they would have had
little or no “digital dividend” from the switch to digital terrestrial TV.
Giving them access to 700 MHz would bring huge economic benefits by allowing
the roll out of wireless broadband networks in a much shorter timescale than
the wired equivalent.

“This WRC decision doesn’t mean that any European government has to move TV
out of 700 MHz but it certainly tips the scales in the decision making
process,” said Martin Sims, PolicyTracer’s Managing Editor. ‘If a
significant number of European countries want to have mobile in 700 MHz this
wouldn’t be practical unless the whole region went along with them. The
economies of scale associated with a global market mean that 700 MHz mobile
handsets could be cheaper, creating a powerful incentive for a second TV
switchover,” he argued.

Oh yes, " CENTRAL is switching to digital, you will LOSE OUT if you don't SUBSCRIBE TO SKY "

Interesting. I suspect the logical conclusion to all this long term (10 to 15 years) will be to ditch all terrestrial digital broacasting, both DAB (on the ropes anyway) and DVB-T. Deliver TV and radio services via the internet, be that fibre to the home, or 4G, 5G etc wireless service etc.

It's only 'data' at the end of the day.

But it's very inefficent that way - why send out lots of little streams to everyone individually when you can just send them simultaneously to everyone from the top of a hill or a satellite? Even though everything's gradually moving to on demand, there will always still be some linear broadcasting

It would take 10-15 years or maybe even longer to make such a transition - the mobile networks at present are nowhere near up to the task and there's many parts of the country with bad fixed line internet