How is digital switchover going?
18 February 2010
This week, the Panel was visited by the Chief Executive of Digital UK, David Scott, and the Chief Executive of the Help Scheme, Peter White, to advise us how the current state of progress in the digital switchover (DSO) of television.
National conversion to digital television has risen from 66% to 89% since 2005. Actual switchover has now occurred in four TV regions covering 4.8 million homes which is 18.2% of the UK. The main consumer issues so far have been retuning and regional overlaps of signals.
The Help Scheme delivered by Eaga - which is open to those over 75 or on certain allowances - was budgeted on the assumption of a take-up rate of 65%. In fact, so far, the scheme has only delivered around 275,000 installations so that currently actual take-up is averaging 18%. This suggests that overall people are finding switchover easier than was feared, but there are a small proportion of strugglers and a tiny proportion who - in spite of all the advance publicity and advice - only act once switchover actually happens.
The Panel asked detailed questions on the experience of the strugglers and on other issues like accessibility of equipment, but overall we are pleased that switchover is going so smoothly. Ever since the Panel was created six years ago, DSO has been a significant issue for us and we have been particularly active in promoting the development and delivery of the Help Scheme and the Digital Outreach programme, but it looks as if we can now adopt more of a simple monitoring role.