Most broadcasters in the UK are making a huge fuss about the digital television switchover, which will see the old analogue TV signal switched off for good across the country by 2012 and replaced by digital multiplex broadcasts (MUXes).
OFCOM, the media industry regulator (famous for allowing ITV to ruin itself and numerous other mistakes) has also laid out proposals to switch Britain from analogue radio to digital radio.
No, no, no. Bad idea.
It’s pretty easy to switch your house over to digital TV: your main set can be hooked up to digital cable or satellite. You buy a subscription and a box off them, plug it into your TV and you’re away. Generally, though, this will only work on one set, because otherwise it would require separate boxes and access points for every set in the house.
Alternatively, you can opt to receive digital terrestrial transmissions without subscription by buying a Freeview decoder, and when switchover comes (BBC2 will be the first channel to be switched off on analogue), you run a line between the box and your TV, and between the box and your aerial. Simple as.
This is possible because a TV is essentially a monitor with an input where your aerial goes in. Other things can be plugged in where the aerial would go, such as a video recorder, or, when the switchover comes, a digital box.
This is not so with a radio. It can only take input from an aerial at the back, and not any other devices. The only way to receive digital radio is to buy a brand new radio - and this will be difficult, because the vast majority of radios in operation in the UK are analogue systems.
In particular, it would mean ancient radios, such as that Robert’s transistor radio in the shed which is older than you, will be useless (unless you want to hear the ‘bip-bib-bip-eek’ of the digital transmissions of the frequency’s new owner).
