Study seeks to support switch to digital TV

THE GOVERNMENT is seeking to discover if it will need to financially assist analogue television households for the digital switchover in late 2012.

A survey to establish the type of households still reliant on the old-style analogue television signal is to be commissioned by the Department of Communications.

The audit will come ahead of the move to digital television and the switching off of the terrestrial analogue signal in December 2012. This will mainly affect households that do not already subscribe to satellite or cable services.

The socioeconomic circumstances of analogue households and their ability to upgrade to digital television will be among the topics in the questionnaire.

The department also wants to know the number and location of households that may need assistance to upgrade to digital.

The report’s aim is to help the Department of Communications to develop and deploy “supportive policy interventions/options in the move” from analogue to digital television, the survey tender document said.

A spokesman for the department said the tender did not imply that the department was going to financially assist people in the changeover.

The department had to establish “if there are issues”. Depending on the research results, the department may have to see if there is something it can do for people, the spokesman said.

Other issues which the survey will be seeking to assess include the number of Irish households that use different types of television reception methods. The report is expected to cost some €50,000 and went to public tender yesterday.

Over one-fifth (350,000) of Irish households rely on analogue terrestrial television, with the rest relying on cable and satellite, according to a department estimate.

Separately, Fine Gael called on Minister for Communications Eamon Ryan to provide vouchers to people on low incomes to help them with the cost of buying a digital box or satellite dish if they needed one.

Fine Gael communications spokesman Leo Varadkar said the switchover would not only affect analogue households but would also affect households with a second television which is not linked to cable or satellite.

Mr Varadkar also called for a public awareness campaign in responding to a survey published by ComReg earlier this week, which revealed that just four in 10 people were aware of the analogue switch-off,

The British government funded a digital switchover scheme for its television migration which will be completed by 2012.

The British scheme funds or partially funds the equipment (usually a set-top box) and set up assistance for digital television for people over 75 and others in receipt of disability benefit.