The End of Analogue TV is nigh…
Northern Ireland is to start the final stage of the Digital TV switchover today.
This will be the last area of the UK to see the cessation of analogue broadcasts and mark the completion of a thirteen year project.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-20033934
A Bit of History Trivia…
From it’s first colour, full public test broadcasts in July 1967 (The year before I was born!) what we know as ‘Analogue TV’ has brought us from the first programmes on BBC2 in colour to having BBC1 and ITV for many years as the staple diet of TV viewers.
In 1982, Richard Whitely presented ‘Countdown’ the first programme on channel 4.
It was then some years before the launch of channel 5 in 1997.
But by then, digital TV had already made it’s debut in the shape of the ‘squarial’ dish in 1990. A broadcaster now mostly forgotten, British Satellite Broadcasting “BSB – Five Channel TV“
They didn’t last long but proved digital technology would soon be the way forward.
BSB struggled to gain an audience with only five channels and was ‘merged’ with sky tv in a controversial deal (Unusual for Mr Murdock!) that stated sky must keep the BSB broadcaster name alive. sky doing what they do best, moved the goalposts and re branded from sky tv to British Sky Broadcasting which remains today. So they did sort of keep the BSB name going…. Sort of!
On Digital & Sky Digital launch in 1998.
There was a great race in 1998 to be the first (If you discount the now defunct BSB) mainstream digital broadcaster in the UK.
The two runners were On Digital (Terrestrial) and Sky Digital (Satellite)
Due to a few technical delays, On Digital just pipped sky to the post and got the first subscribers.
There was a mix of free channels and pay services.
sky soon got their launch and the competition started in earnest.
On Digital struggled to keep it’s head above water and sold out to itv in 2001 to become ‘itv Digital’ with rights to many football matches that they hoped would win the war of subscribers.
One fatal flaw in the technology that was to see the demise of itv Digital less than a year after launch. To save costs, the encryption method for the viewing card was not upgraded and the easily cracked encryption saw the black market flooded with pirate viewing cards.
With the cost of the deal struck with the football rights, when itv Digital announced it’s closure, they stated it would have cost them less in lost revenue to bus all their viewers to the matches and pay for their tickets!!!
ITV as a broadcaster are still reeling from this finacial mistake.
Freeview Launch
In late 2002 after the demise of itv Digital, the BBC in partnership with sky and arquiva, (The UK’s largest transmitter operator) took the reigns of the terrestrial digital platform and relaunched as what we now know as the main digital TV provider, Freeview which is solid and profitable today.
Pretty much at this time, the industry was made aware as a whole that we should expect to see the end of analogue TV in ten years. Which brings us neatly to today, 23rd Oct 2012 when the final switch will be thrown…
Bye bye analogue and thanks…