The Sun Sets On Analogue TV In Spain
March 10th, 2010
For anyone who was not aware, or is still not set up to receive digital TV, your normal analogue TV signal may have already disappeared, as today begins the final phase of the analogue signal switch off and is the most important of all, because it will affect 33 million people in Spain.
Up until now, 57 (out of 90) principle television emission centres have already been switched off, this affected the TV reception of around 15 million people. But the most important phase of the process begins now, with a gradual shutdown of 2,700 broadcasting stations associated with the remaining 33 main emission centres, this will take place over the next 3 weeks.
The reason that these switch offs will affect more people is because they comprise of many of the major cities, such as Madrid, Barcelona, Sevilla, Valencia, Bilbao and Santa Cruz de Tenerife. “We cannot give more accurate details since it depends on the specific signal where the antenna is orientated to in each home,” said José Antonio Quintela, director of the National Transition to DTT. “Anybody who wants to be cautious must be prepared because, starting tomorrow morning and at any time from now, their analogue signal may be shutdown,” warned Quintela.
Encouragingly, sales of DTT (Digital terrestrial Television) decoders have reached sales levels characteristic of “intensive consumer purchase times, such as Christmas. 1.6 million units were sold in January and a total of 27.2 million boxes have now been sold in total. The DTT set top box costs around 30 euros and will allow any television to receive the new signal, while almost all televisions purchased in the past few years are already equipped with a digital tuner.
So, by the time Easter has finished, analogue TV will be a part of Spanish history. From Friday April the 2nd, those who have not managed to make the switch to digital could always choose to simply not watch the TV at all!
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